Clara Spilliaert: Sekirara, A Selection of Diary Drawings 2009-2017
Delphine Lecompte (text)
Borgerhoff & Lamberigts, 2022
€34,00
n Sekirara — Japanese for ‘nudity’ and also the title of her latest collection of 288-page diary drawings — Clara Spilliaert exposes herself. Between 2009 and 2017 she made thousands of drawings, as intimate reflections on her daily life. A selection of these was strung together into a story that can be interpreted freely. Spilliaert’s world is fairytale-like, sexual, tormented and humorous. She draws large insects, pink pigs, gigantic penises, fantasies and shellfish. Her Japanese-Belgian origin is an important, recurring undertone. She is intrigued by the role of symbols in the formation of individual or collective cultural identities. The diaries form a breeding ground for her later ceramic works, in which she further questions themes such as sexuality, faith and our relationship to nature. When we take in her colorful and imaginative drawings, we get to know Clara Spilliaert, but we are equally confronted with our own problems and prudishness, our primitive fears and our rawest desires. The drawings are accompanied in the book by a text by poet Delphine Lecompte, originally written in Dutch and translated into English and Japanese for the book. Clara Spilliaert’s drawings only reinforce her dreamy world, full of fictional characters and animals. The book is a standalone artist’s book and is published on the occasion of a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Clara Spilliaert at the CAF (Contemporary Art Foundation) in Tokyo. This exhibition is the top prize of the CAF Award, presented to young art students in Japan. The exhibition can be seen there from 05.02 to 26.03.2022.
ISBN: 9789463934725
