We end the week of A Portfolio’s with a stand-out oil painter we have been really loving since we saw her solo show at Perrotin NYC earlier this year: German artist Vivian Greven. The sensual works give off this longing feel, mixed with the Greco-Roman figures, also give the viewer a sense of the history of desire. Vivian is based in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Vivian Greven’s paintings are an exploration of interpersonal relationships. From romantic and familial kinship to classical mythologies, the artist transcends traditional depictions of intimacy by capturing the vulnerability of metamorphosis. Her vocabulary borrows from recognizable forms of Greco-Roman sculpture and aesthetic perfection of digital media to interrogate evolving representations of the body through time. In her atemporal spaces, fragmented body parts exist just out of reach: limbs extend out to one another, while lips linger on the canvas. Oscillating between figuration and abstraction, Greven’s smooth figures are often punctuated by uneven framing, erupting color fields, or what appear to be technological glitches, which highlight existing tension between her figures. Greven’s paintings become microcosms where digital-age detachment is overcome by the innate human desire for connection.