Emulsify(ing)

He is only 28 years old and is already in the focus of important collectors, gallery owners and professionals. The Parisian artist Côme Clérino arrives in Spain for the first time to show his striking paintings full of matter, color and energy. His exhibition “Emulsify(ing)” can be seen from November 14 in the CASTELLANA 22 space of WeCollect.

He paints with resins, cement, plaster, silicone, latex, paraffin, acrylic, graphite, colored pencils, pastels, ceramics and even paint. He does it on canvas and paper for art galleries, but he also designs furniture, creates clothing collections, experiments with architecture, intervenes in swimming pools and even flirts with the culinary world. After a dizzying year in which he has held two individual exhibitions and participated in more than a dozen group exhibitions, Côme Clérino (Paris, 1990) now presents his work for the first time alone in Spain in the CASTELLANA 22 space of WeCollect.

Composed of twenty large and small format pieces, the “Emulsify(ing)” exhibition, which can be visited from November 14, 2018 to January 4, 2019, shows Côme Clérino's most recent works inspired by his day every day, “materials that I find every day on the street or that I discover in construction supply stores, exhibitions of artists that interest me such as Mohammed Bourouissa or Helen Frankenthaler, and logically my own previous work with the different techniques and artistic practices with the ones I experience in the studio,” comments the artist. “Some of my pieces are voluminous, but not all, it depends on the subject and the context. I like to juggle volumes and supports. Then I try different techniques, using a huge list of media and materials that gets longer and longer over time. My work consists of painting based on reality and from there offering a different look at what surrounds us all.”

Graduated from the Paris School of Fine Arts (ENSBA) with Honorable Mention from the jury and after working five years in the studio of Wernher Bouwens and Ann Veronica Janssens, Côme Clérino now spends his daily life researching materials and techniques in his studio , an old tube factory converted into an artists' studio, a photography or film stage and an exhibition hall that it shares with other artists, designers, photographers, ceramists or architects with whom it regularly collaborates. “This mix creates a great environment for my work and inspiration and leads me to search and find new paths. When I'm not working on my own projects, I like to participate in collaborations with different people from other sectors to feed my curiosity. What encourages me most about my work is the daily experimentation and the surprises that arise, an opportunity to constantly reinterpret my work, update it and ultimately make it evolve.”

“Emulsify(ing)” is Côme Clérino's fourth solo exhibition after “Voir au verso” (Les Gens Heureux, Copenhagen, Denmark), “Or maybe even go back to painting?” (Classic Paris, France, 2016) and “[arch .] Second Œuvre” (Ensba, Paris, France). Furthermore, despite his young age, he has participated in nearly thirty group exhibitions throughout Europe and has been selected for more than 20 cultural publications, such as Artoday, Abstract Magazine, Le Point Contemporain, Le Chassis, Pudeur Magazine, Lubok, Covermag, Elle Danemark, Influencia or Ouest-France. “I wasn't always clear that I wanted to be an artist,” says Côme Clérino. “My family introduced me to art from a very young age, my first memory of all this was when I was nine years old at a Mark Rothko exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Years passed and I followed different paths but always with this idea in mind. Finally I decided to study Fine Arts and this period validated my ideas and my choice. I don't like to feel completely free when I work, for me it is very different to create from nothing, I need to draw and start from something to start improvising."