9/9 – 28/10 2017
Johansson Projects | Oakland, California
Johansson Projects presents, Monument Eternal, featuring Claire Colette’s ethereal brand of geometric abstraction inviting deep, meditative viewing. Borrowing its title from Alice Coltrane’s first book—which tells of her spiritual initiation, revelations, and austerities—Monument Eternal is a formal exploration of the human desire for transcendence. Interested in contemporary and esoteric creation myths and sacred architectures, Colette’s emotive linear paintings contemplate modern relationships with past civilizations and our own place in the universe. Informed by Colette’s interest in mystical traditions, science fiction, and physics, Monument Eternal concentrates on the history of sky worship, in both metaphysical and scientific practices. Utilizing a muted palette and intersecting planes, Colette depicts solar and lunar forms and ascending architectures, describing liminal spaces and otherworldly landscapes.
Claire Colette received her MFA in painting from Mills College (2013). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Widening Circles,’ Hunter Shaw Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA (2017); ‘Ever/After,’ Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA (2015); ‘Last Light Before A Long Night,’ Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX (2014); ‘Small Moves in Strange Rooms,’ Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2014). Colette’s work has been included in recent group exhibitions such as ‘Modern Hieroglyphics,’ Kopeikin Gallery, Culver City, CA (2017); ‘Thick as Paper Thin,’ Brilliant Champions Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2016); ‘Form Is Not Different From Function,’ Left Field Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA (2016); ‘That’s My Trip,’ Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY (2015).
“My work is a persistent exploration of the immediate and the infinite. I investigate relationships between personal experience and scientific truths – that which lies between the phenomenological and the empirical. Working with abstraction and repetitive mark making I am de-constructing experiences to explore our shifting interpretations of what is known, what is real and how we see.
With an interest in consciousness and the subjectivity of experience, I study moments of psychic focus such as states of intense fear, meditation, and bliss. I am curious about how, while in these states, time appears altered- it can seem to collapse and expand, speed up or stand still. Looking to parallel physical occurrences such as nuclear blasts, earthquakes, and black holes as visual reference, I work with elemental materials, primarily graphite, to render these heightened conditions. Through a gradual accumulation, my pieces develop over extended periods. My delicate and meticulous process feeds largely into the concept of the work itself and speaks to the idea of time and the drastic but elusive role it plays in our lives.”