Art Aid Ukraine
04 MAY 2022 - 17 MAY 2022Notes
Frances Aviva Blane, born Frances Aviva Sternberg , is an English abstract painter who works in the Expressionist tradition. Her subject matter is the disintegration of paint and personality. Blane also draws. However, whereas her paintings are mainly non-referential, the drawings are often of heads, although, as in her paintings, the "heads" are deconstructed which echo her words "broken-up paint, broken-up heads".
In 2014, her drawings were shown in an exhibition entitled Deconstruct at De Queeste Kunstkamers, Belgium. She has exhibited in Britain, Europe, Australia and Japan.
“They are desperate paintings, fetching isolated and sombre emotion from the deep recesses – they are 'primeval, before language, dredged from the back of your mind'. They are Beckett-like landscapes and express something like anxiety, unease, restlessness, all tinged with melancholy or plain sadness.”
Dr Edward Winters, West Dean College, 2005, from the introduction in the catalogue for Frances Aviva Blane's show, Prime Time: Painting, Frances Aviva Blane – paintings & drawings 2006 at Galerie Seitz & Partner, Berlin, January – February 2006
“Blane’s drawings are not for the faint-hearted. They are very demanding and what they demand is attention. Blane seeks to find the fewest marks that will carry the emotional energy she pours into every work. Such loaded distillations require input and work on the part of the viewer as well. They incite a response. ‘I want to make a mark that no has ever seen before.’ And so she does.”
Doris Lockhart Saatchi, London, 2005, from the introduction in the catalogue for Frances Aviva Blane's show, Prime Time: Painting, Frances Aviva Blane: paintings & drawings 2006 at Galerie Seitz & Partner, Berlin, January – February 2006
avivablane.com
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