Guillaume Piens, the Commissioner General of the 2016 Art Paris Art Fair, gives memento a taste of the spirit of this event that « pays tribute to the creativity of women », and introduces us to four artists highlighted in the exhibition. Diptyque is an official partner of this event.

This year, women are under the spotlight at Art Paris Art Fair. Taking a step away from the usual questions surrounding genre and classical feminism, a number of galleries have decided to celebrate the life energy and creativity of different generations of female artists including Geneviève Claisse, Claudine Drai, Song Hyun Sook and Katinka Lampe, who have personal exhibitions.

Geneviève Claisse
Geneviève Claisse was born in 1935 and is related to Auguste Herbin. She has been exhibited in two galleries. One exhibition at Wagner Gallery orchestrates a dialogue between this prominent figure of geometric abstraction and young artists. The other, a monographic exhibition at the Fleury Gallery, reveals a set of pictorial compositions from 1960 to the present day in which the artist explores and investigates shape and colour.

Song Hyun Sook
This year Art Paris Art Fair pays tribute to Korea and hosts artist Song Hyun Sook’s solo exhibition at Ditesheim & Maffei Fine Gallery. She is one of the few female voices from the artistic scene in the Land of the Morning Calm. Born in 1953, Song Hyun Sook works with tempera and a horsehair brush. Her sober compositions feature a few broad, whitish brushstrokes alongside each other on an unusually intense plain background. Her art appears to follow the syntax of calligraphy whilst pushing the latter’s boundaries towards the syntax of painting.

Claudine Drai
The work of Claudine Drai fascinates with its mysterious magic and visible intangibility. Her installations are ephemeral constructions designed and experienced as a “mental body” which we pass through; an invitation to explore our inner selves and our feelings.  Like enigmatic figures with outstretched arms, her tissue paper, bronze and oak sculptures stir the imagination.

Katinka Lampe
Figurative in nature, portraits of children and adolescents by Dutch artist Katinka Lampe (born in 1963) are part of a solo exhibition at the Filles du Calvaire Gallery: nameless sitters are presented as three quarter studies, facing the viewer, or as a bust portrait. They spring from large coloured backdrops and paint the picture of disenchanted youth.

Art Paris Art Fair
31st March – 3^rd April 2016
Grand Palais – Winston Churchill Avenue – 75008 Paris