Cold Painting

Claire Menegatti lives and works from her home studio in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated in 2010 from California State University Long Beach with her BFA in Illustration. While persuing her education, Claire worked to perfect her skills in the Figurative Arts with repetitive courses in Life Drawing, Life Painting, Costumed Figure, and Anatomy, which not only resulted in her having an inordinate amount of credits under her belt, but also honed her now superior eye, senses, and skills. It is this dedication and passion to mastering her complete understanding of form, color, composition, and representation that is visible and ubiquitous in all of her work. In 2008, she received the John Lincoln Figure Drawing Award from CSULB. Her greatest skills are in the traditional methods of art creating, particularly with oils, watercolors, and inks. Her work has a feminine, delicate, and organic aesthetic and leans towards the whimsical, charismatic, or melancholy moods. The importance of Life is exhibited in all of her work. She enjoys representing the curious, beautiful, and sometimes bizarre nature found in the anatomy and textures of wildlife. Her wildlife images show her child-like exuberance for life and it is enthralling. Her deeper emotions are most palpable in her figurative images. She gives the viewer something to reference in each work, creating a narrative. Consistent in her practice, she renders almost hyper-realistically what is most important; while painterly abstracting what is not. Surrounding and interplaying with the main substance of the narrative, she creates an atmospheric mood. She says that often when she wakes up from a dream, or recalls past events from her life, it is always the mood that comes to mind first, this is what impresses and inspires her. More potent then the details, are the moods of these dreams and memories. She says when she discusses her work with viewers, it seems to have the same parallel in their lives. The details and craftsmanship draws the viewer in, but it is the mood of each piece that sways and captivates the viewer. Claire has been exhibiting her work in Southern California since 2006. She has been freelancing as a graphic designer and illustrator since 2012. Aside from her fine art, she is skilled in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, HTML and CSS. If you would like to see more work, or read more about her, visit her social media platforms, browse her Etsy shop, or get in touch. Please visit her site: www.