Exhibition: A textile world

A textile universe - The exhibition of Claude Cornu's works
From 10 March to 8 April 2023 at the Musée-Galerie Carnot
Opening on Saturday, March 11 at 5:30 pm

"For a long time I have celebrated the female body;
After becoming aware that clothing could be, and with what force, representative of the body, of the very being, I have
the body, of the very being, I have integrated it into my work.
It has become a construction material for volume creations. It became a model for painted evocations of imaginary women. I remember my mother's patient work from the flat pattern that was finally embodied in the form on the mannequin. This is how clothing became familiar to me. It was when my father died that I really became aware that clothing could be, and with what force, representative of one's being.

As a model for paintings or as an assembly when it becomes a sculpture-installation, the garment is like a memory of the body that inhabited it, a kind of portrait in hollow. It's up to me to give them enough presence to be tangible even though they are invisible.
In my paintings, I use their evocative power of eras, of times sometimes past, to bring out a fleeting or persistent impression of these figures of the past who would have inhabited these "vestures" and other "costumes".

My sculptures are constructed by adding garments to each other in order to reach my primary intention and always the evocation of a character. The search for these pieces can be very long; colour, material and cut, influence my choice in thrift shops, second hand or charity shops. They are never just any clothes. I choose them for their character, their elegance... I choose them for their past or the one I imagine for them, and that I will make perceptible.