Chris Vervain
Artist
Artist's Statement
I like contrast, apparent incongruity and surprise, like the stillness of a mask dispelled when worn and animated through movement and dance. I want my art to be a celebration of the extraordinary richness of human experience; its triumphs and defeats, a continuous journey of discovery, a perpetual transformation through colour, shape and form.
Echoes of past art
I am fascinated by images and themes from past ages and have taken inspiration from some, reworking them into my own stories and art. The horsemen of the Parthenon frieze moved me to paint one of my largest works on canvas and I also made a free sketch of it in the British museum, on a very long sheet of paper
In London’s National Gallery my attention was caught by another horse from a medieval style painting featuring St George slaying a dragon. In my painting a dancing stallion is arrested rampant in mid air while the world explodes around him. (Which is perhaps what happens when dragons are being slain.)
I have often taken the dancing figures of Poussin as a starting point; two of his paintings in particular both of which incorporate four dancers configured so that one piece is a mirror image of the other. After a careful drawing I made several free interpretations of his work.
I made a very free drawing of a painting of a family celebration in the Victoria and Albert museum which I then developed into several prints and paintings.
