Painting is the heart of Claire Deniau’s practice.
The artist relies on her French roots. The influence of historical French painting - Watteau, Fragonard, Morisot, Bonnard, Vuillard - has her engaged in a sensual, intuitive and passionate interaction with process and materiality.
In her latest work, Deniau begins by writing on the canvas with oil pastels or acrylic. This writing, between image and language, reveals forms. She then paints the forms to give them presence. Claire Deniau layers writing and painting until the painting reaches a balance between strength and fragility.
From one work to the next, she allows the gesture to reveal an unconscious exploration of form, colour, transparency, touch, and depth.
With this mode of action she has experienced what Deleuze defines as « germinal chaos », which is basically a space and time in which to get lost before finding a way to give a painting its presence.
As the artist’s body is fully involved in the process, she believes that it becomes part of the work; and therefore the underlying subject itself. A body which can be anybody’s. This makes a subtle means of physical and emotional connection for the viewer. Body to body. Face to face.
Claire Deniau persistently researches the various aspects of painting whether through the medium itself or photography, printmaking, installation, sculpture, drawing, video, and artist books.
Lives and works in Paris
French
MA & BA Fine Art Central St Martins, London.
Collections: Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum (UK), FRAC Paca (France), private collections.
The painting is a gentle accumulation of an artist’s involvement as much as her nagging desire to step back from a leading role. Arriving in a sensitive and yet assured state, out of dilemma and internal discussion, Deniau paints curves, points, objects, and moments upon an already far from neutral ground. By starting with an anti-indulgent, tentative, awkward, and yet clever relation to color, by also denying an obvious gestural associative mark making, the artist still hopes to be surprised by what she sees she has done. With sound and voice steady rather than strident in tone, somewhat ‘all over’ in direction, nothing appears to come forward. By using a developed inexactitude, or diffidence, not wanting to lay down a law of any sorts, the recent paintings appear as a sum of complex contradictions that hope to go beyond individual understandings of touch, instinct and result.
By avoiding any virtuoso painterly sweep of movement, and then giving in to what does actually appear, the artist seems to turn her back on expectation seemingly unbothered by formal language. Undermining a sense of ease, however, moving from inside the body of work to stepping back outside it, the discipline of thought over feeling, understanding overindulgence, and art over self, leaves work situated in a place where the artist is still able to wonder whether something is going to work.
For the artist, as both observer and maker, both inside and outside the process the discipline of thought over feeling and general understanding over apparent indulgence, will always indicate the value of art over self. The artist produces a generous spread of ambition and drive, with the rules, attitude, and education of her Western post Post-Modern context. Recognizing the past, Deniau wants to register a part in the present, as well as the relation to time spent in the making of a work. The work appears to play out a strange tentative relation to what comes first and what last, and what can be understood at the same time. A shift in emphasis between subject and ground, and back again, till the subject is not purely winning but a result of the time spent making and looking, reminds that to be satisfied is death, and yet to be calm is quite useful.
© Sacha Craddock, Art critic and curator, London, May 2025.
SOLO SHOWS
2025
Movement of things, Galerie Le Réservoir, Paris
2019
All that glitter is gold, Galerie Koo, Hong Kong
2018
Senses & Lenses, Intersections gallery, Singapore
2014
Ricochets, Galerie Emeric Hahn, Paris
Un pas de côté, Galerie Mondapart, Boulogne
2009/10
Entre-deux, Musée Fragonard, Maisons-Alfort
2004
Réminiscences, Cité Internationale, Maison d'Italie, Paris
GROUP SHOWS - selection
2025
Symbiosis, Olal’Art Gallery, Singapore
2022
Sikka Art and Design Festival, Dubai
2021
Red Dot Art Fair with The House of Arts, Miami
2018
Pulse Art Fair Miami with Galerie Koo, Hong Kong
in (significant(2.1), Objectifs - Chapel gallery, Singapore
Scents of Asia, Intersections gallery, Singapore
2017
in(significant(2.0), Instinc Soho, Singapore
Draw/bridge, ARTHOUSE1, London
Castles in the air, Schloss Lekow, Poland
AMBruno, Show and Tell at Tate Britain, London
2016
One Belt One Road, Sotheby’s gallery, Hong Kong
53 books, Chelsea Library, London
2014
Berliner Liste 2014, Berlin
The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, London
20 ans IESA Multimédia, Espace Cardin, Paris
2013
Multiplied 2013, Christie’s, London
Publish And Be Damned, ICA, London
2012
Surfaces: Works on Paper, Spu+Nik gallery, Porto, Portugal
At Play 2012, New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, UK
International Leeds Artists’ Book Fair, The Parkinson Court, Leeds
The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, London
2011
Project 101, The Lab Gallery, New York
The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, London
At Play 3, South Hill Park Art Centre, Bracknell, UK
2010
Visions in the Nunnery, The Nunnery Gallery, London
The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, London
13th International Leeds Artists’ Book Fair, The Parkinson Court, Leeds
2009
The NY Art Book Fair, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York
AM Bruno Artist Books, Bookartbookshop, London
2008
Manchester Artist Book Fair, Manchester School of Art, Manchester
Liverpool Artist Book Fair, Liverpool Independent Biennale, Liverpool
2007
II.472, The Bargehouse, London
2006
Identikit, Temporarycontemporary, London
Works on Paper, Flux Factory, New York
2005
Contact, Espace Lhomond, Paris
Sedicious Delicious : a ‘Taste of Art’, Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews
Project 142, London Fraenkelstein Salon, London
2004
Food, Glorious Food, Visual Art Centre, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire
2003
Obsessions, Five Princelet Street, London
Mutiny, The Bargehouse, London
2002
Bite, The Menier Gallery, London
Hunting Art Prize, Royal College of Art, London
RESIDENCY / COLLABORATION
ESSILOR - World leader in ophtalmic optics - 2016/2018
Inspired by the unique know-how of the Special Lenses Unit (SL Lab) of world’s leading ophthalmic optics company, Essilor and the artistic possibilities offered by the optical lenses, Claire Deniau, has created works incorporating 23 special mineral lenses with unique geometries made specifically for these creations.
This unprecedented collaboration highlights the link between art and vision. Hubert Sagnières, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Essilor International, says about the collaboration:
“At Essilor, we have made it our mission to protect and correct the vision of everyone, everywhere in the world. Today, we are incredibly proud of our collaboration with Claire Deniau, an artist of world renown. By integrating custom-made lenses from our Special Lenses Laboratory (SL Lab) in France, Claire makes it possible for viewers to admire her work in the smallest details. She also wonderfully underscores the natural link between art and vision, and shines a spotlight on Essilor’s unparalleled craftsmanship and know-how.”