Who is Claire Bonnet-Masimbert ?
Contemporary paintings and sculptures
Claire B. Masimbert composes incipits by sketching. More than silhouettes, she paints or models contours evoking the sentient beings that we are. The body, stripped of its particularities, becomes original and becomes a receptacle. The expression “to take shape” finds its full meaning here. What takes shape are the movements of the being, what animates it: its emotions. Those of the artist in the creative moment and those of the viewer who, prompted by this start, ends the story by projecting his own sensibility.
Canvases or sets of sculptures are structured like a sentence: each body is a word that meets another in a play of intertwining or in subtle impulses towards its alter ego. The viewer can thus consider them separately — word for word — or observe the dialogue that takes place between them. The narration appears. Claire B. Masimbert paints as one writes. This pictorial writing makes the line no longer an element making it possible to represent the movement of a body, but punctuating a surface like a punctuation. This results in a form of musicality.
crédit photo Antoine de Parseval
The artist goes to the meeting of what she does not know or does not control. A putting in danger which is characterized in particular by the shifted use of certain supports or by the fragile, elusive handling of the ink, fluid recurring in her work. A posture which obliges it to be in a spontaneous restitution of its state, a posture at the same time challenge and engine.
The artist is fond of raw textures, whether in painting or sculpture. In addition to the breathing that the passage from one medium to another offers her, it allows her to find answers; the practice of one feeding the practice of the other. This is why presented together, an exchange is inevitably set up.
In this pictorial exchange, Claire asks herself the question of the place of the Other and it is quite naturally that she is directed towards proposals of collaboration, opening further the field of the dialogues.
Claire Bonnet-Masimbert was born and raised in Orleans. She lives near Montpellier and works in Pérols (34).
1993-98 As a young girl, Claire spent her free time modeling and drawing, without ever taking classes. At 18, when she began studying law, she was granted access to the university's modeling workshop. She was allowed to use the material on the condition that she systematically destroyed her work in order to restore the clay. She also took part freely in life drawing classes where she worked on sketching. A week is organized between 4 days dedicated to her studies and 3 days dedicated to painting.
2002-13 The artist creates successively two companies in the ready-to-wear. The first, in Paris, takes the form of ephemeral sales of the jewelry and clothing she creates. Claire extends the project by gathering about twenty emerging designers in a boutique. The second, in Montpellier, is dedicated to women's and children's clothing. The drawings of the collections, the pattern making and the prototypes are exclusively made by Claire and sold via fairs and an online store. The creations and raw materials are deliberately made in France.
2013-15 Feeling a transition taking place, she uses this period to reflect and to make a personal assessment that brings to light her creative sensibility and the need to develop her own universe. She creates a blog "La tête à l'envers" on which she regularly posts drawings showing the progress of this introspection. Writing made its appearance through short stories and a play. It is she who will reveal her deep desire to return to painting.
2018-20 The artist decides to dedicate the rest of her career to painting and sculpture. She develops a tailor-made exhibition project - "From body to body" - for the Maison des Arts de Barcarès. This will be the beginning of many exhibitions and other collaborations!