The wanderer paintings

The artist behind the poster for the 72ndedition of the Festival d'Avignon will be exhibiting two series in the Église des Célestins—the first about travel writer Isabelle Eberhardt, the second filled with masked creatures—as well as group paintings, in particular of children, at the Collection Lambert. 35-year-old California resident Claire Tabouret paints a timeless "here and now", using layers of paint to cover and conceal what's underneath. Whether it depicts glassy-eyed children or groups of all ages, her work stares out at us, questioning our desires through the use of deep, polished colours. In the Église des Célestins, the soft earth ground, the silence, and the intimate light echo the atmosphere of a world-renowned artist. Claire Tabouret also found a precious variation on this fixity of presence in the life and work of Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) who adopted several identities, from European woman to Muslim man, before disappearing, drowned and swallowed by the earth she spent her life looking for. It finds an echo in the latex-masked creatures of the series Les Étreintes (The Embraces) and their fetishistic game, standing in the middle of vague and blurry landscapes. At the Collection Lambert, large group portraits, like so many solo portraits miraculously brought together, continue to stare stubbornly at us, silently asking “Who are you?” A question which, from Manet to the present day, continues to be at the heart of modern painting.

Claire Tabouret
Born in 1981, Claire Tabouret graduated with a degree in fine arts from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2006, before moving to Los Angeles. She has created many series, from portraits of children whose paleness and fixity question our own memories to portraits of adults and groups, suspended scenes, or intangible presences. Dancing women, gold diggers, latex figures or boats full of exiled men are among the subjects of a work in a constant state of metamorphosis. “I evoke childhood to talk about determination, solemnity, seriousness, lucidity. Children in my paintings keep their eyes wide open, and they won't close them. They will keep examining us until the end of times.” La Grande Camisole was chosen as the poster for the 72nd edition of the Festival d'Avignon