ART-PRESENTATION: Claudia Comte-The Sea of Darkness

Claudia Comte has long since developed from a shooting star of the Swiss art scene into an internationally sought-after artist. Claudia Comte complements the transgression and combination of different techniques and disciplines by juxtaposing materials such as wood and marble, which she works in the traditional manner of sculpture, with industrially produced elements.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Kunstraum Dornbirn Archive

Comte began painting at an early age, producing her first formal series in 2001. Titled, “Our Most Wonderful Years” the paintings are photorealistic portraits of her childhood, depicting family vacations, birthday parties, and other memorable moments from her youth. Comte has since developed a formal style that tends towards abstraction, bringing together geometric forms, amorphous shapes, and figurative elements, to create a diverse body of work that incorporates multiple media. Often creating site-specific works, Comte investigates the way artwork can transform a space, combining surprising materials, textures, and colors to turn a static room into a dynamic environment. Claudia Comte for her solo exhibition “The Sea of Darkness” has created an environmental installation that immerses us in an artificial underwater landscape littered with ennoble marble debris. Suspended above an arrangement of 40 intricately rendered marble can sculptures hangs a gigantic text fragment by American marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson. Taking the form of wave movements, the text becomes primary material for Comte’s geometrical iconography, which is always grounded in the natural world. In “The Sea of Darkness” language distorts into slippery image. In her work there are always geometric structures that define the space for organically shaped objects and polished sculptures. in the Kunstraum Dornbirn is based on the exact geometric grid using 40 wooden plinths inspired from 40 individual beverage cans. The starting point of the marble sculptures are Aluminium cans from different countries. These were made by the artist deformed, scanned and made from Carrara-Milled marble. The elaborate finish done through the artist in traditional sculptor fashion. Starting from the observation of nature and its changing patterns, the artist creates large-scale environmental installations that embody the world from the perspective of a form of consciousness primarily shaped through the digital experience. Examining current issues such as climate change, ecology and global pollution, her work also narrates the memory of materials and the wisdom of art and craft. These large installations represent the main group of Comte’s works, but her work also includes sculpture and painting, as well as extensive multimedia installations.

Born and raised in Grancy, a small village near Lausanne at the foot of the Mont Tendre, one of the highest peaks of the Jura Mountains, a limestone mountain range located in the Alps, the Swiss artist puts a strong autobiographical reference in her artworks. The forest with its trees and all its non-anthropocentric data belong to the artist’s memory and specifically her childhood memories, and these elements are the first to influence the translation of the landscape into her creations. Comte began painting at an early age, producing her first formal series in 2001. Titled, “Our Most Wonderful Years” the paintings are photorealistic portraits of her childhood, depicting family vacations, birthday parties, and other memorable moments from her youth. Comte has since developed a formal style that tends towards abstraction, bringing together geometric forms, amorphous shapes, and figurative elements, to create a diverse body of work that incorporates multiple media. Often creating site-specific works, Comte investigates the way artwork can transform a space, combining surprising materials, textures, and colors to turn a static room into a dynamic environment. All the projects by the Swiss artist share a series of rules, as well as reference points, which clearly link one work to another in the conception phase. From this process, her works combine a rigid method with a dynamic approach characterized by a minimalist attitude at the same time.
Born and raised in Grancy, a small village near Lausanne at the foot of the Mont Tendre, one of the highest peaks of the Jura Mountains, a limestone mountain range located in the Alps, the Swiss artist puts a strong autobiographical reference in her artworks. The forest with its trees and all its non-anthropocentric data belong to the artist’s memory and specifically her childhood memories, and these elements are the first to influence the translation of the landscape into her creations.

Photo: Claudia Comte, How to Grow and Still Stay the Same Shape, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy, 2019 Photo: Roman März, © Claudia Comte, Courtesy of the artist and Kunstraum Dornbirn

Info: Kunstraum Dornbirn in the Stadtgarten Dornbirn, Jahngasse 9, Dornbirn, Duration: 3/12/2020-28/2/2021, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-18:00, www.kunstraumdornbirn.at