What does it imply to dwell in a world organised by the cosmos? A world structured not by people, not by machines, however by pure forces? By a definite painterly type mixing technical precision with the layered results of peering into digital screens, artist Vivian Greven addresses questions like these and extra. She dives into Greco-Roman artwork historical past to mine the depths of and myths surrounding historical sculptures; to reflect our existence on a cosmological scale; to reimagine what it means to occupy a physique – and this world – right this moment.
‘I’ve all the time been very involved in regards to the membrane of the pores and skin: the floor and the connection to the quantity and the physique beneath it,’ the artist says once we meet at her studio in Dusseldorf, Germany. ‘However out of the blue I felt like I wanted extra air within the work, and I started fascinated by the cosmos.’
Vivian Greven, ‘When the Solar Hits the Moon’ at Perrotin NYC
#9 Vivian Greven. X XIX, 2024
(Picture credit score: Photographer: Ivo Faber. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin)
This latest thought led to the event of ten new work, which will probably be on view in ‘When the Solar Hits the Moon’, her debut exhibition with the gallery Perrotin in New York Metropolis, additionally marking her first solo exhibition in america.
After I go to, the soon-to-be-finished larger-than-life canvases are unfold all through the studio, leaning in opposition to all 4 towering partitions of the previous squash courtroom. Every portray revisits a recognisable motif Greven has beforehand employed – the Roman goddess of Venus; cameltoes brought about on feminine kinds by tight clothes; Antonio Canova’s iconic neoclassical 18th-century sculpture of Cupid and Psyche – whereas concurrently introducing stark new developments, such because the daring use of the color black.
To create her works, the artist scrolls by means of an ever-growing folder of inspirational photographs saved on her laptop. Finally, a sure picture repeatedly captures her curiosity and ‘feels prefer it must be painted now’, she explains. Greven then reworks the supply picture on Photoshop, typically cropping it, typically mirroring or inverting it, or, extra doubtless, finishing up a mix of those instructions. When she’s pleased with the digital composition, she attracts it on a canvas after which painstakingly layers oil paint till her desired color gradients and painted picture emerge. With the method of drying between layers, one work would possibly take six months to finish, with coloration taking part in a key function: in her works, ‘color is just not a illustration of actuality’, she explains, ‘it’s far more a illustration of vitality, emotion, and temperature’.
Set up imagery of the New York exhibition
(Picture credit score: Photographer: Ivo Faber. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin)
When viewing a piece like Ae Tha (2024) or Wh Ole I (2024), I instantly consider digital avatars floating in area, be it within the metaverse or an enigmatic black gap. With out pupils and with shiny, flawless, marble-like pores and skin, the humanoid figures in Greven’s work provide clean identities, able to assume the viewer’s particular person projections and concepts. ‘The figures are tremendous delicate, romantic, nearly touching, nearly kissing,’ she says, ‘however on the similar time, they haven’t any pupils, no breath, no heat. This resembles the sensation of being disconnected, of not being within the physique, of probably not dwelling,’ she continues. ‘Folks right this moment, together with myself, lose their lives on being busy. We survive a day, fairly than being in the day, being current and feeling what’s happening. And once we’re on this survival mode, we’re our personal avatars.’
#7 Vivian Greven. Y O I, 2024
(Picture credit score: Photographer: Ivo Faber. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin)
Amid right this moment’s frenetic energies offline, on-line, and in every single place in between, Greven’s work provide a spot of contemplative solace; a spot to drift among the many (in)seen clouds. Particularly with the present at Perrotin, ‘the entire works are coping with the query of what it means to turn out to be one thing else’, she explains. ‘It’s about altering gravity, in regards to the feeling of a physique that turns into body-less or turns into air. Figures,’ she continues, reflecting on our modern state of being, ‘are consistently dissolving into one other state.’
‘When the Solar Hits the Moon,’ at Perrotin in New York Metropolis, runs 13 April – 23 Could 2024
perrotin.com
Vivian Greven in her studio
(Picture credit score: Photographer: Judith Wagner. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin)
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