Portal No. 12- Claire Venne

Claire VENNE- Technique Mixte sur panneau signée, mesurant 24×32 pouces

“Portal No. 12” 1998

Claire Venne began painting at a very young age. In fact, she considers herself to have always been an artist. Drawn to the visual arts, she began by taking a course at McGill University in Film and Communication and graduated with a BA in Communication. Several work experiences followed, but after a while something seemed to be missing in her life, and she decided to take the plunge and study painting, her first love. She enrolled in Fine Arts at Concordia University, specializing in painting, and graduated with a BA in 1986. These studies led her to discover abstract art and composition. At Concordia, she formed a friendly group of artists with the same passion as her, a group whose meetings continue to this day to discover and comment on each other’s production.

Throughout all these years, the subject of her works has changed, but the approach, whether for the android, architecture, masks, or silhouettes, has remained the same. Across these diverse themes, the paintings are characterized by their semi-abstract character, highly textured surfaces, and a dynamic, bold, and poetic use of color.

Since leaving Concordia, Claire has painted full-time in her studio at home in Terrasse-Vaudreuil, producing a body of work that is both robust and original. She also participates in numerous exhibitions.

Her artistic approach starts from the idea of ​​integrating representative and abstract elements on the same canvas. This juxtaposition of rather disparate elements within a composition allows her to enrich her pictorial language and give it a very contemporary feel. The themes of the works may change; however, the stylistic and technical approach remains the same. The techniques used are a combination of collage, watercolor, ink, acrylic and oil. The surface of the canvas is worked in successive layers. This way of proceeding allows her to seek unique textural effects, to enrich the luminosity of the color and to create effects of depth. A similar approach is found in the videos that Claire produces with her paintings. The images juxtaposed on a musical score take on a whole new dimension in which the solidity of the figurative elements is enriched by the poetry of the abstract elements. Claire Venne’s works can be found in galleries as well as in private and professional collections throughout North America, Europe, China and Japan.