Working from deeply colored backgrounds, French painter Claire Tabouret roughly sketches her subjects with layers of neon paint, infusing her characters with an inner light. Her most recent paintings feature older men mining for gold or traveling to the American West. Tabouret found inspiration in the cabin she recently purchased two hours outside of Los Angeles, which was part of a western movie set and still contained hats, picks, and other tools associated with gold mining. The figures encompass the hopes of moving to the West – fame, fortune, gold, freedom – along with a sense of isolation the men must have experienced. Tabouret’s work has been exhibited widely throughout Europe, and her paintings were recently installed in dialogue with Yoko Ono’s work at the Villa Medici in Rome.
photo credit: nik massey