Ara Starck (b. 1978) French

Ara Starck (born in Paris in 1978) is a French artist whose work unfolds across painting, stained glass, textiles, and monumental installations. After studying at the Ateliers de Sèvres and the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, she continued her studies in London, first at Central Saint Martins and then at the Slade School of Fine Art, from which she graduated in 2002. A year spent in New York contributed to shaping her visual language before she returned to Paris, where she now lives and works.

From an early stage, Ara Starck chose large-scale formats as a field of experimentation. Her vast compositions do not seek to impress through their scale, but to immerse the viewer in a space where figures seem to float between appearance and disappearance. Through optical distortions, overlapping colours, and constant metamorphoses, she constructs worlds in which dream, movement, and perception become intertwined.

Light occupies a central place in her work. More than a visual phenomenon, it becomes a spiritual and philosophical principle. In both her paintings and stained-glass works, she explores the tensions between shadow and clarity, the visible and the invisible, silence and revelation. This reflection reaches a new intensity with Phaos, the first solo exhibition presented by Galerie Ketabi Bourdet, whose title derives from the Ancient Greek word for light as knowledge.

Her practice now extends across numerous mediums. Her large-scale paintings are accompanied by monumental stained-glass works, ceramics, textiles, and projects integrated into architecture. Works created for the Fondazione Made in Cloister in Naples, the Havana Biennial, Maison Heler in Metz, and La Almazara Museum in Spain testify to her constant desire to bring painting into space.

Ara Starck develops a deeply narrative practice without ever confining the viewer to a single interpretation. The figures that populate her compositions become mediators between different worlds, inviting each viewer to construct their own reading. Galerie Ketabi Bourdet supports this research by presenting her most recent works, in which painting, light, and architecture converge in an immersive experience.