Fluff is a word that immediately makes me smile. My childhood favorite, cotton candy, jumps to mind followed by leisurely dreaming up what object a cloud looks like as they float by. However, I had never associated it with paintings.
Fluff is also what @clairetabouret calls her landscape paintings on show at the @icamiami. Their colors are enchanting and the rhythmic brush movements strong, as if she had to use force to achieve them. The landscapes are abstracted, resembling Impressionist paintings. As we move closer we realize her canvas is actually not a flat cotton surface but colored synthetic fur, which explains the very physical feeling of the strokes.
The artist describes them as “a transcription of the work of Les Nabis, a group of artists including Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, who blurred the distinctions between Impressionism and abstraction in late 19th-century Paris”.
In the act of transcribing, she creates another impression. She paints the wayward surfaces into submission till her landscape takes form, giving the paintings the depth of a bas-relief.
Au Bois d’Amour, curated by Alex Gartenfeld, is on show at the ICA Miami till Nov. 12, 2023.