Claire Prouvost
Claire Prouvost is a French illustrator and graphic designer based in Dublin, Ireland.
Curator’s note: In her own words, Claire loves to draw charismatic women in a bold, colourful and minimalist style. A self-portrait may be in order as here Claire shares her inspiring and charmingly honest story. From the early beginnings at her french high school to the incredible, independent illustrator she is today. To me, her work is extremely confident and assured, which is testament to the fact that as Claire goes on to say, it takes time to find your voice. So please, read on. Rest assured, you’ll be sure to find her words comfortingly reassuring.
I never thought I would be an illustrator but here I am. Although I knew I wanted to be in the design/art world from a young age, it took me a long time to figure out what my niche would be. It has changed over the years and I am open to another change if needs be! I have always been drawing and I am lucky to have a pretty creative family, that always supported my choices when it came to education. As a child, my dad and I would spend afternoons and days painting together, where we would explore new techniques and subjects. My experience of high-school (in France) was pretty much in the same line. I joined a course (Bac STI Arts Appliqués) which was supposed to make you try as many things as possible. From painting, design and architecture case studies, art history, and projects ranging from sketching every day to painting skulls, small architectures to fashion design. It was by far the most fun years of my life, experimenting and creating. This 3 years course (paired with the normal curriculum) is supposed to give you a taste of some of the design/art courses offered in colleges, but it was really hard for me to pick one. Product design, graphic design? I ended up picking one that wasn't too far off in Bordeaux and started a product design course for 2 years. It didn't really feel right though. I loved doing the layouts of my presentations but wasn't really enjoying the process of designing objects that much. Another 2 year course in industrial design followed, that I didn't enjoy either, before I finally made the switch to graphic design.
I started my Masters in graphic design, attracted by typography, strong colours and layouts. I used to HATE the illustration modules in college. In my mind and in college workshops, illustrators were often presented as 'children's book storytellers' and I never really had an interest in that. I was attracted by bold, colourful images, and in retrospective, there is a very fine line between illustration and graphic design. These terms are so broad that it can be hard to suggest the number of styles and potential usages of these two fields. Later that year, I did an internship in Dublin, working for a graphic designer in the publishing industry. Not only did I love the job, the co-working space it was based in and the people around me, but I also started to work with illustrators and broadened my mind by looking more and more on Instagram. We also had a 'Sketch club' in that co-working space, and that was a wonderful thing. Showing up every week to draw portraits of each other was great fun, and it made me realise how much I had lost touch with my first childhood love, drawing. It is something that was always a release, an experimentation and introspection tool, and somehow, throughout the years in a creative field, I lost touch with it. After graduating, I started a full-time job in that place, and I loved it. Sketching was still only a hobby, but the vibrant creative scene of that co-working space, and Dublin in general, made me draw more.
Until a very hard break up. That was a realisation for me. Everything was shifting and I could only hold on to the things that were steady in my life. Would I move back to France with my family or stay in that new creative family I found here? As a therapeutic project, I took the 100-day project challenge and started to draw images I found on Instagram daily in my little notebook, using only 3 primary tubes of gouache. It was my way to reconnect with myself and explore that world inside me that was awaiting its time. The colours, the shapes, it all started to come out, in a clumsy way at first, and became more refined over time. I finally found my niche, free of fitting in to 'that or that design' box in school, and it seems to be grouping all of those skills I had picked up over these years. I needed a good environment and to choose to put the focus on myself, opening up and tapping into what was always there. After four years in that graphic design job, I decided it was time for a change, and after a transition to part-time for a year, I took the leap to be a full-time freelancer back in January.
What I wanted to say here is that it takes time. To find your place, your style, and your path. And that experimenting and taking the long way works too. And it is a work in progress. I believe that this is a journey of growth and that what felt so scary two months ago can be what feels right just now. The voice that I have today isn't the one I had yesterday, and isn't going to be the one I will have tomorrow. We constantly need new simulations in our environment, the people we meet and the life choices we make. Inspiration comes from so many places, but mainly from within, from your own life experience. I suppose that the situation we are living right now allows us to stop for a minute and refocus on to what matters most. The people around us, our goals, vision and childhood passions become priorities when distractions are stripped off.
Right now, I am working hard in order to grow my business, my style and my projects, and Dublin definitely is a great place for that. This city is growing, the culture is changing, and the art scene is wonderful and open. And I will keep sketching as much as I can, to keep that introspection going, in order to bring more colours and illustrations to the outside world, and that journey is very exciting!
