Claudine Drai (Parigi, 1951) is a French artist who currently lives and works in Paris.
Claudine Drai's works, made of mixed materials, develop the relationship between what is physical and what is intangible as well as the presence and the absence going to the source of a genesis. One of Drai's favourite material is paper, especially silk paper and Japanese paper, that she crinkles to give shape and eternity to a fragile world. Transforming into material the immaterial, she creates candid compositions which come out from the canvas, expanding into space and playing with lights and shadows, revealing a transcendental world where some presences appear. The delicacy of her creations is underlined by the prevailing white, that results in transparency, illusions and light tricks. As Olivier Kaeppelin wrote:
«This is what she experiences, this permanent mobility that goes from emptiness, from "nothing" to shape then from shape to "nothing", before once again attempting the adventure of this reality in the making. Looking closely at the reliefs of Claudine Drai, she shows us the act of birth. Fragile, threatened births whose survival must be ensured through constantly revived action».
It is not the indiscriminate white nor the modeled paper figure that appears within it, but it's the “in-between" that makes them tremble, breathe like arrows in the air, in full swing. This intention to remain in the essential and vital vibration does not come without danger. The outcome, the conceiving thought are suspended in a void. If strain disappears, this void can unravel and take everything away, reversing, then, the work in the abyss. Claudine Drai engages in a dangerous one-on-one with the angels who are the spirits of her work. It is precisely because this danger can dissolve everything in whiteness that it forces us to be acute, on the lookout, increasing our senses capacity as well as our understanding. Claudine Drai offers us this reality enhanced by consciousness and sensations. They are caused by the risk of no longer perceiving, of no longer seeing. This awakening opens up the field of an aesthetic adventure where the slightest counterpoint, the slightest twirl, the slightest modulation construct the meaning of the work.
Claudine Drai worked on public commissions on many occasions. Among them, the monumental sculpture for the Saint-Camille hospital hall in Bry-sur-Marne, under the patronage of Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation; a triptych made of paper and pigment that suggests a connection between the three monotheist religions made in 2008 and later exhibited at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport communal hall; a sculpture as a tribute to all the victims of terrorist attacks made in 2016 with the support of ADP Group. In 2012 she starts to work with bronze as well, bending it and making it look as light as paper.
At the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017 her exhibition project called Le lien des mondes was full of contaminations from different worlds, involving personalities coming from poetry, culinary art and high fashion, such as the fashion designer Hubert Barrère and the Michelin star chef Guy Martin. In the same year, Palazzo Fortuny in Venice included her in the collective exhibit Intuition and her works were put on display in the private hall of Grand Vèfour, the Parisian restaurant owned by chef Guy Martin inside an 18th Century historical palace.
Claudine Drai multisensory experimentation begins in 1994, when she starts to include the sense of smell in her three-dimensional works. Her extraordinary perception in the perfume field allows her to work together with Guérlain in 2018 for the celebration of the 190th anniversary of the Maison de perfume constitution. On this occasion, an exhibit called L'ame du temps was held at Guérlain historical store on the Champs-Elysées and it was inaugurated by the artist. As a result of this special synergy, the new perfume L'Heure Blanche was launched in limited edition.
The French artist creativity brought her to the architecture field as well. In 2021, paired with the French architect Vincent Parreira, she created an art piece for the project «1 building 1 art work» started up by Laurent Dumas, founder and president of Emerige group.
The well-known movie director Wim Wenders was so inspired by Claudine Drai's fascinating and suggestive works that he made a video artwork titled présence investigating her way of working. It is an artistic 3D video which, starting from the art of Claudine Drai, explores the genesis of art through an evocative visual story. Présence has been shown during the opening week of the Venice Biennale 2022 at Palazzo Grassi thanks to the support of François Pinault and it will be on screen at Centre Pompidou in Paris next in October 2023. The audience is absorbed watching the artist working in her studio, crinkling paper with her own hands, sometimes with her eyes closed, as if her hands know instinctively what her mind suggests. In 2022 ACP - Palazzo Franchetti, the Venice foundation owned by Alessia e Roberta Calarota, holds a selection of her artworks.
In 2023 two major events will take place: the presentation of the video artwork "présence" by Wim Wenders at Centre Pompidou in Paris, together with the unveiling of the artwork acquired by Guérlain for their headquarters on the Champs Elysée.
Claudine Drai's works are included in prestigious private collections around the world and her art has been shown in important galleries and museum, such as Centre Pompidou in Paris, Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Ghisla in Locarno, Swiss. In the past she has worked with Jérôme de Noirmont Gallery in Paris, La Piscine in Roubaix and Hasegawa Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.