Artist Clara Tournay has transformed a public square in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, into an ethereal art space with her five mystical sculptures titled "Maeves." The 29-year-old visual artist's installation at Place du Petit Martroy, situated at the foot of Saint-Maclou Cathedral, is part of the Le P'tit Reg'ART festival and explores themes of memory, temporality, and sensuality through her unique sculptural works.
Tournay, who lives and works between Paris and the Vosges mountains, discovered her passion for ceramics at just three years old. For fifteen years, she juggled pottery, sculpture, and drawing, with ceramics leading her to work with materials and light, while drawing and painting guided her toward a more pictorial approach. "Ceramics led me to working with materials, then to working with light. Drawing and painting led me toward a more pictorial approach," she explains.
Despite dreaming of an artistic career from a young age, Tournay initially chose business school because "I wanted to be in art when I was younger, but it wasn't necessarily a profession that was valued in high school." After graduation, she worked as an advisor for art galleries and cultural institutions while continuing her creative work outside office hours.
At age 24, Tournay made the pivotal decision to dedicate herself fully to art, returning to studies with a specialization year in art history at the École du Louvre. "That's what allowed me to improve all the theory around the art market and nourish my artistic work," she states. This academic foundation proved crucial in developing her theoretical understanding alongside her practical skills.
Tournay's career began with exhibitions in bars and hotels, where she could analyze public reactions to her work and gauge audience appeal. The enthusiastic reception led to a gallery exhibition just five months later. Her talent was soon recognized with the Contemporary Arts Prize from the Sorbonne, followed by the Public Prize in January 2022, which opened doors to a solo exhibition at the Galerie du Crous des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Now with five years of independent artistic career behind her, Tournay focuses her work on three main axes: sensitivity, incorporating notions of life and landscape; temporality, exploring concepts of the ephemeral and impermanence; and light, playing with illumination effects on her works and their constant evolutionary changes. Her entire artistic process centers on the concept of "entre monde" – the space between what exists and what doesn't exist, what escapes our gaze.
"These are all symbols found in Japanese culture. I work somewhat in a notion of magical realism, this in-between space between the fantastic and the real," explains the passionate artist. Her approach distinctively combines science and spirituality, with biological and mineral aspects reflected in her painting techniques. Each layer forms an epidermis that forces viewers to approach as closely as possible to understand the sculptural work's pictorial aspect and composition.
In 2024, Tournay participated in a residency at Chapelle Saint-Antoine in Greece, where she explored feminine representation around the mythological prototype of Mother Earth and the study of archaic figures. Inspired by the Celtic goddess, Maeves symbolizes feminine power and the cycle of life, representing one of the avatars of Mother Earth and an heir to Paleolithic Venus figures.
Her Maeves series transforms materials to give them a mystical dimension. Previously installed in the Chapel of Saint-Denis du Saint-Sacrement in Paris in 2024, the Maeves reflected the filtered light of stained glass windows, transforming the space with moving colors and forms. The sculptures are crafted from funeral quarry stone and polycarbonate sourced from hospital waste, creating a dialogue between matter and light, as well as between organic and artificial elements.
Transparent, brilliant, and luminous, these creations change appearance according to daylight and viewing angle. At their current location in Pontoise, they project moving colored shadows and reflections at the foot of Saint-Maclou Cathedral, creating an ever-changing interplay between the sacred architecture and contemporary artistic expression. The installation continues to dialogue with light and space, embodying Tournay's vision of art existing in the liminal spaces between reality and imagination.
