The recent retrospective exhibition at the Victorian Artists Society charts Claire Adyns creative journey from her early Belgian life to her career as a commercial and fine artist in Australia. She migrated to Australia in 1952 and lived in the bush setting of Warrandyte, northeast of Melbourne.
 
Claire Adyns paintings were presented in solo and groups shows in more than ten exhibitions around Australia and South East Asia from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. Claire’s creative output was limited in later years by her deteriorating eyesight.
 
She was born in Belgium in 1926 of Flemish and Canadian parentage, coming from a family that produced several professional artists. Claire trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in fine and commercial art. In Melbourne she was regarded as an accomplished commercial artist, who had a particular skill in airbrush techniques. 
 
In later years she rekindled her love of painting and produced an enormous body of work that included figurative, portraits, landscapes, and still lives in a range of styles. She was influenced by the early Flemish masters, the naïve tradition, and Belgian surrealists. Her work harks back to her memories of her origins and expresses her love of European architecture. In her practice, Claire continued to be inspired by the peace and serenity of the villages, gardens and houses she remembered from her past.