Clara's Friends

 

CLARA's “BauHaus” villa

A flat roof, clean-lined geometric shapes with no frill, exposed concrete, an open airy space and floor-to-ceiling glass windows to maximize natural light: CLARA's villa boasts the typical features of the BauHaus architectural style. Literally "Building House", the movement spread widely when Water Gropius and his disciples fled overseas to escape the Nazis in 1933. It had a massive influence on design and architecture worldwide.

CLARA opened its doors exactly a century after the creation of the BauHaus movement. And not only does the villa stay true to its style, but Christian and Clara Martena also exemplify the BauHaus philosophy of building stronger relationships between artists and craftmen. CLARA brings together painters, sculptors, light designers and cooks under one roof. Honouring his past life as an exhibition hall, the five-meter-high walls and garden remain the backdrop for carefully curated artworks.  

 
 
 

Artists in residence

 
 

P. TENDERCOOL

P. Tendercool, a Bangkok-based and Belgian-run design studio, specializes in bespoke handmade furniture for interior designers, hospitality and private clients.

Pieter Compernol and Stephanie Grusenmeyer are the founders and design directors of P. Tendercool, a company known for the Haute Manufacture of its tables. "We make tables and make them well" is their humble motto. Each creation is bespoke, unique and handcrafted to the highest international standards for discerning art lovers and interior designers worldwide.

P. Tendercool creations boast multicultural influences. Alongside Belgian founders and designers, Pieter Compernol and Stephanie Grusenmeyer, Italian and Thai bronze masters, Asian designers, a Belgian antiques restorer, Thai carpenters, Sino-Thai staffs, a French art photographer, a Beaux-Arts designer, an Australian webmaster and a Belgian graphic guru weave their inspiration and craftsmanship together. The result? Cross cultural creations with European flair and Savoir-Faire boosted by Asian energy.

 
 

VAL

This is an honour to showcase VAL triptych in CLARA’s garden. The three sculptures, “Ce qui aurait pu être” (“What it could have been”), “Ce qui ne peut pas être” (“What it couldn’t have been”) and “Ce qui pourrait être” (“What it could be”), represent three different love stories.

Valérie Goutard, Val, is a renowned contemporary sculptor. Born in France, she lived in South America, Africa and Europe before settling in Asia 15 years ago. In Thailand, she discovered the traditional work of bronze and established her workshop in Bangkok. Her works have been on permanent display in numerous galleries across Asia and she participated in various art fairs in the region.

In 2014, Val started creating sculptures mixing Murano glass, bronze and light, a unique innovation in the contemporary arts scene. Her monumental sculptures can be seen in Bangkok, Taipei and Singapore, to name a few. In 2016, she installed three sculptures made of concrete, bronze and coral in an underwater site in Koh Tao (Thailand), the first artistic and ecological project of its kind.

In 2015, Val was awarded the Trophée des Français de l'Etranger (Award for French Expatriates) in the art of living section, rewarding her work and achievements abroad.

 

TANTAI

Based in Bangkok, Tantai is a tattoo artist specialized in fine-line tattooing and graphic design. Graduated from Chulalongkorn University in communication design, Tantai mixes local beliefs with international social movement. He has worked as a guest artist in different parts of the world.

Over the past few years, he has moved from solely working on human skin to day-to-day objects and furniture like muay-thai leather boxing gloves, cow skin and silicone arms. The tattooed high-end leather chairs, a collaboration project with P. Tendercool and Aurele Ricard, are on display at CLARA’s Chef Table.

 

MATTEO MESSERVY

Matteo Messervy has designed the outdoor lighting of CLARA’s garden and facade, together with the hanging light sculptures in the dining room.

Matteo Messervy is known for his work in light-architecture, light-design and for his large-scale installations featured in many major exhibitions. Light, matter, and human beings guide his work. He plays with the way they collide, whirl and play around each other. He looks for a balance in this fragile chemistry, highlighting these interactions and how they can impact our daily lives.

 

Visiting Artists

ADANA

Franco-Cambodian artist and activist, Adana Mam Legros is the daughter of Somaly Mam, an international icon of women’s rights and controversial personality fighting sexual slavery of children in Southeast Asia, and Pierre Legros, trained parasitologist and specialist in human trafficking.

Adana spent her childhood in Phnom Penh with women and children survivors of sexual exploitation. Outraged by social injustices, she started law and political science studies in Nice. Interrupted by a cancer in 2017, she escaped to New York after her treatment, a city where her artistic passion truly began. She inaugurated her first exhibition, My RenaiSense, in June 2018 in Manhattan.

The activism of her parents also contributed to her artistic construction: “I grew up surrounded by women and children survivors of sexual exploitation, I had to find a way out of this cruel and violent world. All my works contain a woman’s body that we see tortured, disabled, abused, but I show both their vulnerability and their strength.”

 
 

CHLOE KELLY MILLER

Born in Rouen (France) with a hearing impairment, Chloé did not let her disability get in the way of embracing life. She empowered her disability to access the resources that one may not be aware of, even with the possession of the five senses. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Chloé’s core creative themes revolve around the questioning of self through self-discovery. 
 
Chloé displays an eclectic body of work, constituted of photographs, acrylics, graffiti, inks and drawings. From iconic figures of pop culture to intimate and fragmented images, the artist investigates the notions of identity and representation. She does so by creating a dynamic exchange between the subject and the viewer in her artwork. Colors and black backgrounds dominate her latest body of work, in order to evoke and mirroring our unconscious. 
 
The deconstruction of the eyes is a recurrent motif in her artworks, which she sees as a mean of personal expression. As a result, the portrait genre holds a central place in her collection. It enables her to depict her experience of the self and explore the process of othering. She considers her artistic praxis as inherently spontaneous and eruptive. Ultimately, her profound fascination for understanding the human mind would become the driving force of her many striking pieces today.

RUDY MEYER

Rudy Meyer is a French Neo-Pop artist based between Paris, Barcelona and Bangkok.

The conventional education systems were at odds with his creativity, so ‘studying’ was spent drawing at the back of the classroom. And keeping a job for more than a few weeks? Impossible. He knew his life had to be different.

That’s why he gravitated towards people who went against the grain and made a massive impact in the world: the Game Changers. He spent days and nights reading biographies about people who made the impossible, possible. Their lives were his source of inspiration and courage

Within Rudy Meyer’s work, freedom of expression in Life and Art is the pursuit.
His creative approach is adventurous, rebellious and free.

He uses acrylic, spray paint and ink to create abstract backgrounds where he can express his freedom. Then, he applies multiple layers of hand-pulled silkscreen printing above to deliver powerful and inspiring images.
The different mediums bring their own variables and visual connotations.