The château of artist Claire Basler, nestled in the languid hills of central France, is filled with flowers inside and surrounded by them outside. Not only are flowers the favourite subjects of her paintings, they are her favourite décor, too, and she arranges them like installations in each room to complement the murals she paints on walls, ceilings and doors. Being inside the home she shares with her husband, Pierre Imhof, is like being inside one of her paintings – mesmerising, magical and otherworldly.
Claire’s ability to create unique and deeply moving interior environments comes, in part, from her desire to share the power of several seminal childhood experiences. When she was 12, she had an epiphany at a Gothic palace in Avignon. While other youngsters might have been tugging at their parents’ sleeves begging for early release from sightseeing at the Palais des Papes, Claire was immovable inside its 14th-century walls. Enveloped on all sides by ancient frescoes inside Pope Clement VI’s private study, the chambre du cerf, she was overcome. “I had the strong impression that I was not just looking at the painting,” she recalls, “but was part of the painting.”
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