Claire Iono

Claire, visual artist, was born in 1969 in Paris.
She has been living in Auroville for the last 10 years.

Ever since she was a little girl, Claire, said she would live several lives in one. True to her word, she explored many different paths before placing her art practice at the centre of her life.

Claire was initially trained in France by a Bauhaus painter who spontaneously offered to share her knowledge with her, it was one of the lovely encounters that changed her life; one of the many she has had on her path. Continuing her artistic journey, she explored in the direction of traditional arts and was trained in the Japanese painting technique Sumi-e, which had a profound impact on her development as an artist; pushing her to evolve her practice and research, it taught her to look at the world through another set of eyes.

For Claire her art practice is one and of one piece with her decision to walk a spiritual path. Her art is an expression of the unfolding of her inner journey. She intuitively fluctuates between the abstract and the figurative, creating subtle worlds that evoke imaginary and symbolic landscapes, where nature is animated. In her visual storytelling there are no boundaries between realms, instead they simply unfold into each other in a kind of continuum.

In her present series of paintings, Hidden Cities, the symbolic and allegorical cityscapes that she depicts,  timeless and unknown, may sometimes evoke metropolises or some undiscovered or mythical cities.
“The cities are a metaphor of our limitations and resistances,  says Claire, and that’s actually the parallel I make, it’s between walls and limitations, they form layers of all that must transform in us; the journey to experience this inner transformation is not a linear ascending process but rather a multi dimensional one”, and this is how Claire etches out her visual narrative, playing with different planes. She pursues: “And they are layers and layers to be transformed  at different levels, nested in each other, strata of our small and large stories of now and before. The mythical cities are present remains of an attempt of a new world and in this adventure of a new man, we also carry these experiences”.

Her iridescent paintings are always alight with a fire which is the manifestation of the will that allows us to overcome limitations. “The skies represent possibilities”, explains Claire, “and on Earth, where all our limitations are, there is a sea or a river, a flow, that allows us to link everything.”

She uses tempera with wash technique as used in Indian traditional ancient arts and watercolours and ink as used in different ancient Asian techniques. Her references are painters such as Paul Klee, VS Gaitonde and Zao Wou-Ki. Claire Iono’s evocative and imaginary is effortlessly fused to create an image of hope and life, with this positive energy that radiates through the beautifully ethereal world that manifests in her work.

Her art pieces find collector’s homes all around the world. She has held several solo shows and has participated in several group shows in India and in international art fairs.This last year, Claire was a finalist of the Indian national competition Ora Mojarto and of the international exhibition, Art revolution Taipei in Taiwan.

She recently has joined the artist’s catalogue of Kalakriti Art Gallery, one major gallery in India.