Claudia Comte (b. 1983, Grancy) is a Swiss artist based in Basel, Switzerland. Working across site-specific installation, painting and sculpture, her practice is guided by a longstanding interest in teasing out the history and memory of biomorphic forms through traditional hand processes, industrial and machine technologies. At the heart of Comte’s installations are monumental wall paintings and serial sculptures inspired by organic patterns and morphology such as waves, sonar, cacti and rock strata, that are playfully recomposed within fluid and immersive environments. Drawing on the powers of communication, knowledge and symbiosis between animal and plant life, Comte’s dynamic and shape-shifting objects pay testament to the intelligence and transformative capacities of the ecological world.

Her work has been widely presented in solo and group exhibitions, including Waves, Cacti and Sunsets, Globus Public Art Project in collaboration with Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2023); Marine Wildfire & Underwater Forests, Gladstone Gallery, Seoul (2023); From Where We Rise, Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido (2023); Through Dry Ocean Forests, Albarran Bourdais, Madrid (2022); An Impending Disaster (HAHAHA), König Galerie im KHK Wien (2022); Geometric Opulence, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2022); After Nature, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2021); How to Grow and Still Stay the Same Shape, Castello di Rivoli (2019); Zigzags and Diagonals, MOCA Cleveland (2018); NOW I WON, Messeplatz, Art Basel (2017); and 10 Rooms, 40 Walls, 1059 m2, Kunstmuseum Luzern (2017).

Passionate about using art as a tool for connecting marine conservation, policy change and climate education, she has collaborated with several organizations on projects, including a residency and underwater commission developed with TB21-Academy in 2019 to raise awareness of coral health around the Alligator Head Foundation in Jamaica.

Photo credit: Courtesy of the artist