Selfportait, 2016. Paris.
Clothilde Matta is a French visual artist and photographer, born in 1991. Her initial training as an actress deeply informs her artistic practice, establishing a strong connection with the performing arts and the physical engagement of the body. It was during a stay in Rome in 2017 that she solidified her practice and began developing her analog photography work.
In 2018, she exhibited her photographs at Galerie Modern'art in Versailles. That same year, she was awarded the Young Talents Photo Prize at the Fotofever art fair and received the Public Prize for her series Jealousy of Matter, shown at the Carrousel du Louvre. At the same time, she lent her voice to several French-Italian films and documentaries.
“Desire is my driving force, both carnal and spiritual. My work—deeply intimate, poetic, and sensual—explores the duality between the sacred and the profane. I depict the human body through the lens of dreams and fantasy, navigating the blurred lines where fiction and reality merge. My images weave connections between the divine and the earthly, the invisible and the tangible, unveiling secret, almost magical dimensions.
I create sensual and dreamlike images where the body, nudity, and the sacred converge. Between dream and reality, my work weaves an intimate narrative driven by desire, memory, and spirituality.”
In 2019, she was invited to Kyoto by Wacoal as part of the Kyotographie festival, where she presented a solo exhibition of her series Transfiguration. She also held a solo show at Galerie 15 in Toulon and participated in the YOUMEIN festival in Tangier, supported by the American Legacy Foundation for her video ELLES, Tangier, co-directed with Nina Cholet. In October of the same year, they presented their work in a preview at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie during FIAC, and later in Nice at the OVNI festival.
In September 2021, Clothilde released her second film, ELLES, Rome, and returned to Kyotographie with the project ELLES, supported by the MEP as part of the France-Japan Season during the exhibition Women Artists from the MEP Studio: New Perspectives in Film and Photography from France. As part of the MEP x MADE collaboration, she also offered a selection of limited-edition prints.
In August 2022, she was an artist-in-residence at La Chapelle Saint Antoine, located on the island of Naxos, Greece. In July, she took part in the group exhibition Les Fleurs du bal, supported by Studio KSBP, presenting an immersive visual and sound installation inspired by Marcel Proust’s Combray and her 2019 journey to Japan. Her work was featured in the international magazine EXIT, published in Madrid, in April 2023.
The following year, she moved to Marseille to reconnect with her Mediterranean roots and to develop her work in a fresh and inspiring environment. She exhibited at Lily and joined the Curriculum Chromé program, designed to support the professional development of visual artists and the growth of their projects. In March, she presented her work at Philippe Zorzetto's gallery on rue de Turenne in Paris.
Clothilde is currently working on a book and continuing her research on desire and corporeality through the lens of spirituality and religion.
Selfportrait, 2018. Paris.