“Where Beauty Lies…”
One of my bodies of work explores the concept of Paradise as something sought after by modern society. My search centres on gardens–as near as our own backyard and as far away as other continents or the imaginary garden in our consciousness. It has been stated that each garden reflects our longing for spiritual peace–a tie with our primeordal beginnings. It is in the beauty of nature where I find this spiritual peace from a homemade garden to a formal garden, from a tree to the vastness of Grand Canyon, from a rocky coast line to the calmness of a man made pond. “The artist knows that even though he has created something beautiful, it can be destroyed. His real and innermost satisfaction is not in the object, but in the subject; that thing within him that penetrates the mystic splendor of Beauty itself” (Ernest Holmes pg 39).
When I do my walk about in my garden I am in that “world for the moment” and no place else and so like O’Keeffe I want to give that feeling to others. My floral paintings are a breathtaking splendor of pure colours in the abstract form of flowers created to capture richly patterned light. This “living canvas” is very important today living in a society with information overload, one needs to escape to beauty and journey into nature to return to our centre the primordial garden/being. As Keats puts it “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
My paintings lean towards capturing strong contrast between lights and darks and complimentary colours with abandonment to patterns in nature which become a breathtaking splendor of pure colours in the abstract form of flowers.
BIO
Claudette has a degree in Fine Arts and since 2005 she has been pursuing her art full time. Claudette has had numerous solo and group shows mostly in Ontario with a few in Buffalo NY. In Juried Shows she has won four best in show awards, awards of merit and Honourable Mentions, the Gerald Gunther Humanity Award, and the City of Toronto Purchase Award. In 2014 Claudette’s “Night Vision #3” painting was purchased by the Ontario Government and she was accepted for the first time into the Toronto Outdoor Art Show and the Queen West Outdoor Art Show in Toronto, Echo Art Fair in Buffalo, and the 2nd International Biennale Art of Palermo in Italy in January 2015. In August 2014 two of Claudette’s paintings were selected in the “Up Your Alley” wall mural contest for the International Village Business Improvement Area for two walls on the Streets of King East Hamilton. In 2015 3 of Claudette’s paintings were exhibited Berlin Germany at contemporary Gallery called Marzia Frozen. In 2016 Claudette’s art has been accepted into the Toronto Outdoor Art Show, Oakville Art in the Park, and the Hamilton Supercrawl Event.
Her art is selling at: Tagart Gallery in St. Catharines, Art Gallery of Burlington in the Art Ectera shop, and in Hamilton at: Art Gallery of Hamilton’s Art Shop (art cards only), Art@231 James Street Gallery, Centre3, Sealed Art and Cafe Oranje. She is a member of the Artists Network group in Toronto and exhibits in Toronto with this organization. Her art can be found in both corporate and private collections in Canada and the United States, Brock University and in governments such as the Toronto City Hall and Ontario Government.
