Claudine Drai lives and works in Paris.
Since the beginning of her artistic career, mixed media artist Claudine Drai has explored the relationships between the material and immaterial, drawing and sculpture, line and transparency, as well as the ideas of presence and absence. She uses paper to create figures, landforms, communities, and landscapes. With this white, fragile, transparent texture from textile, silk and paper has lead to the genesis of various spaces and shapes: those of the leaf, painting and sculpture as well as those of the body, senses, or even illusions and utopias.
Drai has had many public commissions; notably the monumental sculpture for the entry hall of the Saint-Camille hospital of Bry-sur-Marne (with the patronage of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation). In 2008, Claudine Drai created a triptych from silk paper and pigment for the ecumenical public space at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport: a universal work that weaves a link between three monotheistic religions. Again at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, Drai sculpture conceived in tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks, which was inaugurated in 2016 with the support of the ADP group. During the 57th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2017, Claudine Drai presented a new project which put a meeting of different worlds into play: an interaction between contemporary art, poetry, culinary art and high fashion reuniting Michelin starred chef Guy Martin, the fashion designer Hubert Barrère and the writer Olivier Kaeppelin. The same year, the collective exhibition « Intuition » at the Fortuny Palace in Venice also explored the essence of Claudine Drai’s practice. In 2017, the Michelin starred chef Guy Martin brought contemporary art into his restaurant, the Grand Véfour, confiding the private salon of this historical space to the artist. In 2018 Claudine Drai was introduced to Anne-Caroline Prazan from the luxury House of Guerlain, who entrusted the artist with the rooms of the famous Champs-Elysées location to celebrate the brand’s 190 years of history and creation. Since 1944, perfume has held an important and central place within her work. From this collaboration with the House of Guerlain a perfume, « L’Heure Blanche », was created in 2019, inspired by the world of Claudine Drai and created by the head perfumer Thierry Wasser and the perfumer Delphine Jelk. In 2021, within the frame of the program « 1 building 1 work of art » initiated by Laurent Dumas, president and founder of the Emerige group, Claudine Drai created an architectural piece in collaboration with Vincent Parreira. Since 2020, the Michelin starred chef Jannis Brevet has entrusted Drai with the recreation of the salons of the Inter Scaldes restaurant in Kruiningen (Pays-Bas).
At the 59th Biennale of Venice, PRÉSENCE, Wim Wenders’ 3D installation on the art of Claudine Drai, had its world premiere at Palazzo Grassi and the artist exhibited successively at Palazzo Franchetti and Palazzo Polignac. This event was organised with the support of the Clavé Fine Art gallery, which has been exhibiting her work since 2021. It was in the city of Venice where the artist was introduced to the Maggiore G.A.M. gallery, which now represents her internationally.
Her creations are featured today in prestigious private collections and have have been exhibited in France and abroad: Centre Pompidou (Paris), Fondation Maeght (Saint-Paul de Vence), Fondation Ghisla (Locarno, Switzerland), Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont (Paris), La Piscine (Roubaix), Galerie Hasegawa (Tokyo, Japan), Palazzo Fortuny (Venice, Italy) amongst others.