Vivienne Williams RCA, 'Contemplating Colour'

About

“How to arrange a few domestic objects against a plain background? This has been a long-standing preoccupation.

I paint from my imagination and memory, preferring a flattened perspective with simplified forms. These objects - flowers, vessels, and fruit - are then re-arranged and painted over many times.

There is an emotional significance invested in the objects by returning to them again and again - like working a seam, one painting leads on to the next. It is a balancing act, deciding what to leave in and what can be left out, but in the search for compositional balance and harmony, colour is the most important element.

There are visual echoes throughout the painting as one colour relates to another and the layers are built up until ordinary paper takes on the feel and weight of old leather.

The surface is energetically re-worked, scratched, sanded and stained and at any moment there is the opportunity for a painting to emerge. 

It always surprises me when a battle on the paper resolves into stillness, a calm painting.”

                                                                                                             Vivienne Williams RCA, 2020