Clara Spilliaert Japan / Belgium, b. 1993

The visual world of Belgian-Japanese artist Clara Spilliaert (born in 1993, Tokyo) floats between dream and reality. Through various media such as drawings, ceramic sculpture, video and animation she constructs a playful, obstinate artistic practice rooted that bears witness of an interest in history, mythology, nature and sexuality. Her layered projects in public spaces start from a fascination with this cultural and historical context.

Clara Spilliaert was born in Japan and moved to Belgium in 2009. The seed of her practice is inextricably linked with this relocation and resulted in thousands of intimate diary drawings that made up the foundation of her visual language.  She first studied drawing and later ceramics at the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent. In her home country, she won the prestigious Contemporary Art Foundation award for young artists in 2020. In 2022, she had her first solo exhibition in Tokyo and published ‘SEKIRARA’ at Mer. Books, containing a selection of her diary drawings.

For her solo exhibition 'Hairy Tale' at Lichtekooi Artspace in 2023, she developed an in-situ installation exploring the analogy between the handling of body hair and gardens. Clara Spilliaert won the Fintro Prize 2023 for young artists in the visual arts category.