Clara Desire
PROFILE
Clara Desire is an artist whose work interweaves graffiti, drawing, text, and fragmented imagery to explore the realms of dreams, memory, and the unconscious. Amid spontaneous lines and vivid colors, a defining element of her practice is the repetition of poetic words and phrases that linger in her mind. Repeated across the surface, language gradually moves beyond its literal meaning, transforming into rhythm, sign, and image, becoming an integral part of the visual composition.
Her practice resonates with a lineage extending from Surrealist automatism and Expressionist energy—recalling figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock—to graffiti and street art. Drawing on the influence of graffiti culture, including Futura 2000, as well as her deep engagement with Japanese anime culture following a stay in Japan in 2002, Desire freely layers fragments of popular culture with childhood memories, dreamlike imagery, and recurring words, transforming them into a deeply personal visual language. While having also contributed to commercial illustration and music design, she maintains an intense focus on painterly expression.
Moving fluidly between word and image, memory and dream, consciousness and the unconscious, Desire constructs a distinctive pictorial world in which reality and imagination continually overlap.
BIOGRAPHY
1978 Born in La Rochelle, France
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions：
2024 “Child Oddity” Sho+1, Tokyo
2021 “Muse Incorruptible | Everlasting Muse” Sho+1, Tokyo
2012 “While Dreaming, Sounds My Loud and Wild Cry” Hionas Gallery, New York
2008 Roppongi Hills, Tokyo
2008 T.Y. Harbor Brewery, Tokyo
2007 “All About Clara” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2006 – 2014 Permanent Exhibition, Restaurant Guy Savoy, Paris
Group Exhibitions：
2026 “Before Spring” Sho+1, Tokyo
2025 “Faces – Expressions Through the Face” Sho+1, Tokyo
2024 “fairy tale in a dream” Sho+1, Tokyo
2023 “Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK)” Sho+1, Kyoto
2023 “ART FAIR ASIA FUKUOKA (AFAF)” Sho+1, Fukuoka
2022 “Illusion of Reality” GINZA TSUTAYA BOOKS FOAM COMTEMPORARY, Tokyo
2013 “The Armory Show” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, New York
2013 Galerie SMAAKS, Paris
2012 “Art Platform – Los Angeles” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
2012 “The Armory Show” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, New York
2011 “KIAF” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Seoul
2011 “ART FAIR TOKYO 2011” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2009 “KIAF” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Seoul
2009 “ART@AGNES” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2009 “Something Sweet Girls” Galerie Sho Projects, Tokyo
2008 “KIAF” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Seoul
2008 “ART OSAKA” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Osaka
2008 “ART@AGNES” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2007 “New Wave Contemporary Artists Exhibition” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2006 “Introduction of 3 Contemporary Indie Artists; Clara Desire, John Lurie, Betty Tompkins” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo