I am a mixed media painter and sculptor also working with children in my studio in Paris.

 

Creating is my key to the secret garden, my way to find one direction to not wasted time, to not loose mind, to not cry the unbelievable course of life. My work is a conversation with myself; sometimes somebody can hear it; about the imbalance of human life : fleeting, mysterious, useless, with her magic of the unknown "rendez-vous" with the death. The imbalance of the intimate and the Universal. 

 

I want my work pump the memory of the viewer, charmed by glamorous colors and materials, he slowly slips for an unexplained feeling from the collective and vive memory. 

 

For the past fifteen years I’ve been developing a variety of medium including ceramic, lacquer, embroidery, crochet, etching, monotype, paper-clay…

 

All this technics help me to be more sincere and more spontaneous like the outsider artist from folk art or visionary who heavily influences me.

 

Text by Pascal Doisy

Rohhh cest sale c'est vilain car juste banal!
CE dont Virginie Clavereau parle ici ; cest du quotidien de la vie sans grandeur d'âme sans manifestation colossale.
Dans CE qu'il y'a de plus normal avec ses moments de folie joyeuse partagée ou solitaire, ses moments de mélancolie abyssale quand le temps se tord et que le vide s'engouffre.
La vie qui fatigue, qui énerve ou surprend par des grâces.
Du qui fait peur avec de la tristesse, quelques poussières de mort, de la blessure.
Du qui fait rire avec de la tendresse de l'amour de l'espiègle.
Voila les différents portraits d'un même visage, qui s'exprime à l'aide de plusieurs médiums : techniques manuelles et souvent chronophages.
Ils disent tous : la même femme artiste et mère…
Juste "Le besoin de s'exprimer complètement et la certitude de ne jamais y parvenir." H.G Clouzot.

Text about the work Down In The Hold (A Fond De Cale) by Florence Nicol

These days, we tend to see many reborn artists who shifted to an artistic career after having discovered their calling at a later stage of their life. Virginie is not one of them, simply because she was born an artist and always knew it. Sure, there's something telling about the way she dresses and decorates her apartment and her studio but it only hints at what lies within, which is a beautiful creative spirit. As a true artist, if never judgmental, she cultivates a way of seeing things differently that makes for her always enriching conversations.She definitely has her own artistic style and you never fail to recognize a work of art made by Virginie Clavereau. 

Regarding her work, I must say I have become a collector of her paintings since her first exhibition. The first gloss painting has a story I find meaningful. One day, as I mentioned to her my favorite movie (Dersou Ouzala, by the great Kurosawa), she undertook a compelling series that captured and embraced the spirit of this movie. Virginie's voice doesn't come out in words but in paintings, and her great curiosity as to what people see and feel when discovering her work, though in line with Marcel Duchamp's concept that it is the viewer who makes the art, is also the mark of an open-minded artist. As I said, Virginie is not a woman of words, especially when it comes to her artwork, but when she does express her emotions towards it, the visions she shares are surprisingly stirring.

I'd be hard-pressed to list all of her exhibitions and solo shows, although I never missed one and always felt like buying several works, but I have always been impressed at the renewed, raw inspiration she draws from reality, which demonstrates that as a living matter, Virginie's art keeps growing. There is this special project that I find particularly original in that it bears her very distinctive signature : she generously invited other artists (including me, as a writer and director of cultural documentaries) to watch a very poetic and idiosyncratic movie by John Huston (A Walk with Love and Death) and create works after this experience. This resulted in an inspiring assemblage : I wrote two poems, while together with Virginie, another artist built an almost life-size wood horse, another one came up with a photo booth, where you had to wear medieval hand-made outfit on a fabulous background. Virginie's own work of art was a series of oil paintings, some of which included elements of fabric.

When looking to the future, Virginie Clavereau readily shines the light on all the artists that influence her and whom she wants to keep learning from, but I prefer to emphasize just how much she has to offer to her peers and to the world in general.