Artist

Clara Debray

Birthplace

Saint Cloud, FR

Living in

Annecy and Paris

Education

École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris

Duperré

Mediums

Sketching

Drawing

Oil painting

Inspiration comes from the landscapes I travel through, the people I meet, my own body and sometimes my dreams

Clara Debray's works catch the eye, grab it in fact. It cannot let go of these canvases imbued with a melancholy filled with joy that transport it into an imaginary world as powerful as it is delicate. In spite of a diffuse strangeness, an intense tranquility, a feeling of appeasement emanates from the mysterious and dreamy figures that run through these marvelous, dreamlike, fairy-tale-like settings. The shadows are not grey, but deep blue, electric green, wild purple or flaming red. The mountains that the artist comes into contact with on a daily basis are also painted in new colours. "I recreate the world as I see it, I want to share my vision of the nature that surrounds me," she explains.

Clara Debray paints a hair in the same gesture as a landscape, giving a detail all its majesty, a bit like Georgia O'Keeffe who transfigured flowers by enlarging their proportions and geological forms by revealing their mystical dimension. In her studio, plates are used as palettes; a certain greediness shines through in her work, an appetite for sensations and emotions, a thirst for capturing the light of day to retain the most vibrant colours.

Clara keeps a large part of her research hidden from view in sketchbooks, in which she records precious sketches, often in fine black felt-tip pen and chromatic notes. These enable her to construct a new composition in coloured pencil, which she applies with a light line, as a canvas. She then lets herself be guided by the material, often a smooth-textured paper on which pastels or oils glide with fluidity, and by the colours whose subtle correspondences she accompanies with great spontaneity.

Text Sonia Pavlik