Switch Hitter
Whether with a paintbrush, guitar or computer, Claire Cormany finds a creative outlet.
By Lee Steely Photo courtesy of Claire Cormany
A successful graphic designer, illustrator,
painter and musician, Claire Cormany is one
of those irrepressible, finger-in-every-pie creative
types. On a recent day, she was finishing
up two or three design assignments, working
on paintings for an upcoming show and fighting
a nasty cold, all with a laugh in her voice.
A pace that could spell creative overload for others seems to come naturally. “I spent my childhood drawing, painting and writing children’s books, all while wearing my roller skates,” she says.
A native Floridian, Cormany came to Alabama to study graphic design at Samford University and never went back. “I might as well be a Birmingham native now,” she says.
Cormany’s fine artwork is driven in large part by her own sense of creative awe. Her paintings eschew figures for landscapes that feature vast swaths of nighttime sky and tiny, dwarfed villages; other “landscapes” are abstracted in pieces that play with color impressions of place. Her choices deliberately draw a personal reaction from the viewer.
While Cormany has her own vision for each painting, part of the work is to evoke the viewer’s own associations with landscapes and color. A painting in browns and greens evokes South Carolina Low Country for one viewer, while the light creams and ochres of another remind one woman of a beach from her childhood.
Cormany also isn’t shy about working within specific color or subject parameters for fans who request it; rather than seeing such requests as limiting to her art, she welcomes the process of crafting her paintings to fit harmoniously into their destined space. As an artist preoccupied with the subjectivity of space and color, this enthusiasm seems only natural.
You can see more of Cormany’s work at Rojo April 8 to May 5 or at Magic City Art Connection April 23 to 25. Visit her online at clairecormany.com
