Artist who likes to say it with flowers

A show in Beijing reveals how French painter Claire Basler's art and life have merged

The scent of flowers is a big part of Claire Basler's idyllic life in the central French city of Vichy.

The 55-year-old painter lives in Chateau de Beauvoir, a castle in the woods, and has converted some of its interior into a miniature botanical garden. She wakes up, dines and paints amid vivid floral arrangements and the potted landscape. Flowers recur as subjects of her oil paintings.

Basler is now showing 13 of her floral still-life pieces at a solo exhibition, Gathering of Flowers, at Amy Li Gallery in Beijing.

Her paintings portray flowers in many aspects: innocent or sexy, soft in texture or powerful in strength, Basler tells her guests at a salon at Hotel Jen Upper East Beijing.

One can find many kinds of flowers in Basler's works: corn or field poppy, peony and marigold. Her works reveal the extreme fragility of nature and its surprising force of resistance.

"They tell me everything. They teach me how to live life," she says of flowers and leaves.

Basler's attachment to nature dates back to her childhood in Vincennes, a Parisian suburb. Her father often took her camping, and she loved immersing herself in the world of flowers, trying to understand the essence of nature.

She studied painting at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris in the late 1970s and spent hours observing paintings at the Louvre. There she found her inspiration: The works of 18th-century French masters, especially Antoine Watteau, whose art shaped Basler's style.

Basler also became most drawn to painting the beauty of nature, rejecting the then conceptual art in fashion.

Her persistence with the floral motif has since spanned nearly 40 years.

Basler says she had always wanted a dream-like place that could fit her floral paintings as a whole.

She has run several studios, but says fell in love with Chateau de Beauvoir at first sight.

In 2011 she and her husband bought the castle, built in the 18th century and once used as a school. It had been deserted for 40 years before they moved in and the facilities inside had been ruined.

The couple didn't see it as a challenge to renovate the place, which covers about 3,000 square meters.

They decorated almost every corner of the castle with dynamic plants and paintings. Each of the dozen rooms features a distinctive style of her works.

Basler especially favors poppy flowers, which are a recurring theme in her pieces.

She feels the quality of her lifestyle has improved owing to the renovation efforts with the castle.

Her brushwork continues to be inspired by the colors of flowers and the greenery around her.

Although artists today work with varied mediums and approaches, Basler sticks to the classic style of painting that she chose at the beginning of her career.

"I feel lonely (as a painter). (But) I've never wanted to change the material I work with."

The oil pigments enable her to make new discoveries about the uniqueness of her daily life, she says

And she comes across many possibilities when using oil paint on different surfaces, including canvas, paper, wall and porcelain vase.

"The floral and greenery motifs in Claire's works present a healing power, through which people can understand why art and life should be merged," gallery founder Amy Li says.

linqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 08/21/2015 page29)