​Contemporary South African Art

Article credits to  www.agora-gallery.com

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The absorbing paintings of Claire Denarie Soffietti play familiarity and mystery off one another to an emotionally heightened effect. Soffietti depicts quiet moments: serene portraits; a tranquil woodland path;

a woman lounging on a chair. But the colors are more intense than in reality, while the compositions are so tightly framed that they become forceful and kinetic, and the portrait subjects never reveal all to the viewer. Soffietti’s figures have secrets, and hint at an interior world within the picture frame. It is her wonderfully tactile, gestural painting style and bold color choice that makes the picture world seem more real than

our own.

Soffietti was born in Versailles, France and has lived

in Barbados and South Africa, where she now works. She works in acrylic, watercolor, ink, oil, pastel and chalk, always using color as an assertive compositional element that is just as important as

any of the ‘real’ objects in the painting. Soffietti describes her medium as “anything which lacks sobriety. I am not here to be colorblind!”

Joyce Asper PR Coordinator / Agora Gallery
Claire Denarie Soffietti

Collective exhibition

January 16 - February 5, 2013 Reception: Thursday January 17, 2013 6-8 PM

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Artist Statement
I never received any formal training in art, but I always looked to the world of colour for my refuge. In time, I realized that I could use my lack of knowledge to my advantage by working outside the box. I paint like one breathes, simply because it is necessary to survive. I love to put a smile on someone’s face, and for this reason my work is full of the energetic ambivalence of quirkiness, balanced by the need for harmony. My main aims are always to be fresh, simple and humble at all costs.

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