For my further artistic practice I would like research the accelerating effect the implementation of digital technology and algorithms has on an individual.
For my further artistic practice I would like research the accelerating effect the implementation of digital technology and algorithms has on an individual.
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
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Ich bin ein Textabschnit. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt.
Vivian Greven
© Vivian Greven, Leea, 2017
“My work is about love. It is about the longing for an unconditional yes to every existence.”
– Vivian Greven
human existence
dissolving hierarchies
connection, separation and merging
touch through a digital screen
perfect bodies
expanding boundaries of the body
the pursuit of perfect beauty
beautiful surface and the pain underneath
unconditional yes to every existence
Artists website → http://www.viviangreven.de/
Vivian Greven (1985, Bonn) lives and works in Düsseldorf. She creates ethereal paintings that are based on an adept play with various notion of bodies, being and representation. Her work explores concepts of classical antiquity merging with pop art and digital image worlds sliding in fluidity between representation and abstraction. (Gallery Vacancy; Kadel Willborn)
“Working in alluring colours and restrained arrangements, her paintings display the interplay between surface and form with a glowing luminosity, dramatically flirting with body structure, dualism, and human existence depicted in serenity and clarity. Beauty is rooted within holiness, which is in connection with the universal balance between the immortal and the ephemeral.” (Gallery Vacancy)
“Vivian Greven’s painting is characteristic of our present times, which are shaped by the internet and social media and thus dissolve the hierarchies between original, reproduction and simulation. The art historical and contemporary historical nestling corresponds with Greven’s painterly treatment of surfaces. Parts of her painting rise as actual reliefs that encounter sprayed or painted fictions of bodies and space. The aesthetic of her pictures vacillates between the vocabulary of physical painting and the ethereal illusion of LCD windows.” (Kadel Willborn)
Vivien Greven, selected works with a focus on hand gestures
Vivien Greven, selected works with a focus on bodies and negative space
Vivian Greven
A contemporary look at the Classical ideals
interviewed by Marina Pérez
(Selected Questions from the interview)
What is it about creating that drew you as an artist?
“I think human nature is fertile. Creating seems to be the most genuine force to me.”
What do you think is the most challenging aspect of pursuing an artistic career?
“It is always challenging to find the balance between body, mind and soul.”
You are known to be working at the interface between figurative, conceptual and abstract painting. What does your art pretend to reflect from the contemporary subject-perception in the digital age?
“I am interested in connectivity. How do we get in contact? How do we look at each other, how do we touch each other? How does it feel to touch through a digital screen?”
Has the Classical Greco-Roman art always been your main source of inspiration? What is the idea behind your portrayal of perfect beauty and your ‘artificial creation of bodies’?
“Classical Greco-Roman art developed an optimized idea of bodies. I see a strong connection with our ways of creating perfect bodies. We are addicted to perfect outer appearance. Perfect skin, perfectly slim, optimized bodies. In that way, we have not changed throughout the centuries. I think that is fascinating, as the pursuit of perfect beauty has probably never made anyone happy. My work concentrates on the discrepancy between the beautiful surface and the pain of the body underneath.”
I have read that Antonio Canova and Gian Lorenzo Bernini are great inspirations for your creativity. However, who are the contemporary artists you can’t take your eyes off?
“Alice Tippit, Ed Atkins, Helmut Dorner, Mevlana Lipp, Stefan Löffelhardt, Louise Giovanelli, Jordan Kasey, Lambert Maria Wintersberger, Natascha Schmitten, Benjamin Houlihan, Shannon Bool, Ridley Howard, etc.”
How would you describe your artistic process?
“I am always searching for the point where my inner force feels that the outer world (represented by the painting) resonates with it.”
What’s the connection between mythology and your work? And religion?
“I like stories. These stories are our stories. They help me to understand what it means to be an ‘I’.”
What’s the moral behind your refusal to gender depiction?
“I would not say that I have a certain moral in that context. I just like to depict my figures as representations of human beings in general.”
How do your art pieces deal with gender politics?
“My work is about love. It is about the longing for an unconditional yes to every existence. I think gender politics share this vision.”
Key Takeaways
Kadel Willborn Gallery; Film feature about Vivian Greven's recent gallery exhibition "CLOSE" with contributions by Dr. Uta Ruhkamp, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and Dr. Markus Stegmann, Museum Langmatt.
Transcribed passages
(00:33 – 00:45)
“It is basically always about the issue of being connected or not connected of separation and merging. These poles play an essential role and the different souls that I then create view this essential question in different ways.”
(01:00 – 01:11)
“But it also about boundaries the question of where one body begins and another body ends. Or about what it means to be a body and where a body has its limits.”
(01:12 – 01:20)
“We also know that when we approach something, we sense the object before it is really there. The body’s boundaries expand, so to say. That is what I examine in my paintings.”
Key Takeaways
I admire the clarity of shapes and colours in her work. It is interesting to analyse how she makes use of the sculpture and turns it into a contemporary image. The connections she provokes between figures that seem to merge even though their bodies remain separate reflects the interaction through a digital screen for me.
Also the surface of her works is flat apart from the 3D shapes she adds from time to time that also enhance the effect of flawlessness. I think I can learn a lot about the glow of purely applied colours and sharp contrasts. In addition to that I really like the way she incorporates classical hand gestures in her composition.
References
Gallery Vacancy (no date), Vivian Greven. Available at: https://www.galleryvacancy.com/vivian-greven.html (Accessed: 21.05.22)
Kadel Willborn (no date) Vivian Greven. Available at: https://www.kadel-willborn.de/en/data/artists/142/vivian-greven.html (Accessed: 21.05.22)
Pérez, M for Metal Magazine (no date) Vivian Greven - A contemporary look at the Classical ideals. Available at: https://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/interview/vivian-greven-a-contemporary-look-at-the-classical-ideals (Accessed: 21.05.22)