I was born in Belgium of Flemish and French Canadian parentage and came from a professionally artistic family.

I attended the Royal Academies of Fine Art in Brussels and Antwerp, and used my training as a freelance commercial artist to pursue my career in Europe and Melbourne. After a long career in advertising I was inspired by some naive paintings hanging in the agency’s art gallery, I tried to paint in a more Flemish primitive manner, which suited very well my dpeictions of houses, villages and small castles surrounded by “secret gardens.

I was very fortunate to be offered a solo exhibition as soon as I showed my first few paintings, and a very pleasant career opened for me. After a period of succesful shows, I felt a desire to work in a different style inspired by the great surrealist Belgian master Paul Delvaux who was a family friend and whose museum on the Belgian Coast is very familiar to me. I have worked on these paintings for a number of years and I have shown them commercially.

For the last 10 years Claire has painted in her individual style which is neo-primitive rather than naïve and is occasionally influenced by surrealism.

Her intricate paintings of houses, villages and mini-castles surrounded by “secret gardens” hark back to her European origins, and express her love of the architecture of those regions.

Solo and mixed exhibitions since 1983:

Gallery Art Naïve, South Yarra

Naughton Gallery of Naïve Art. Woollahra

Howard Gallery, Perth

Bluestone Gallery, Williamstown

1992 Mixed Exhibition of Art Naïve, Noosa Regional Gallery

1992 Solo Exhibition La Plage, Noosa

1992 Euro Day Art Exhibition, Sydney

1993 Mixed Naïve Exhibition Georges, Melbourne

1993 Doncaster and Templestowe Resident Art Show