Viky Garden - Paintings

+64 021.453.418:: thelab@fe29.com

Untitled June 2023
Acrylic on canvas
880 x 680 x 50 mm (framed)
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230708 VG Untitled June 2023 880 x 680 x 50 framed acrylic on canvas
We Sit at Tables Like Ghosts (2017)
Acrylic & silver leaf on canvas
830 x 1030 x 50 mm (framed)
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230708 VG We Sit at Tables Like Ghosts (2017) 830 x 1030 x 50mm black frame g
Uma and Bird (2023)
Acrylic on canvas
630 x 480 x 50 mm (framed)
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230708 VG Uma & Bird (2023) 630 x 480 x 50 acrylin on canvas framed d
Flowerbombing I (2022)
Acrylic on canvas
980 x 780 x 50mm (framed)
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230708 VG 220722 Flower Bombing 2022 980x780x50
Ancestral Roses I (2022)
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 x 40mm (framed)
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221118 Portrayal VG Ancestral Roses 1 2022 500 x 400 acrylic antique wallpaper on canvas framed
Ancestral Roses 2(2022)
Acrylic on canvas
600 x 950 x 40mm (framed)
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221118 Portrayal VG Ancestral Roses 2 2022 60 x 95 acrylic antique wallpaper on canvas framed cr
Ancestral Roses 3 (2022)
Acrylic on canvas
800 x 600 x 40mm (framed)
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230114 Portrayal VG Ancestral Roses 3 2022 acrylic 80 x 60 antique wallpaper on canvas framed
A Thin Disguise (1995)
Oil on hessian board
835 x 625 x 40mm (framed)
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221118 Portrayal VG A Thin Disguise 1995 835x625x40 Front b
The Wilding (2021)
Acrylic on canvas
825 x 625 x 50 mm (framed)
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230708 VG The Wilding 2021 Acrylic on canvas 930 x 730 framed

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Bird (2021)</br>
Acrylic on linen</br>
600 x 800 (framed)</br>
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Last Light (2022) Acrylic on canvas
700 x 550 mm (framed)
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230708 VG Last Light 2022 acrylic on canvas 700 x 550
Surge (2021)
(Grit series)
Acrylic on frayed canvas
800 x 600 mm
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Surge Acrylic on frayed canvas 80 x 60cm, 2021
Red Kimono (2020)
(Grit series)
Acrylic on frayed canvas
700 x 500 mm
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Red Kimono Acrylic on frayed canvas 70 x 50cm, 2020
Another Matter (2020)
(Grit series)
Acrylic on unstretched canvas
470 x 380 mm
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Another Matter Acrylic on unstretched canvas 47 x 38cm
528 Months (2021)
(Grit series)
Acrylic on frayed canvas
475 x 375 mm
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528 Months Acrylic on frayed canvas 47.5cm x 37.5cm, 2021
Pahiatua 1966 (2019)
Acrylic on canvas
800 x 600 mm
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Who Knew on wall 2s
Untitled December 2018
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 mm
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Small Untitled December 2018 500 x 400 1s
Untitled September 2018
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 mm
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UntitledSeptember 2018 50 x 40 acrylic canvas $7500 s
Untitled 1 February 2018
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 mm
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Untitled 1 February 2018 50 x 40 acrylic canvas $7500 s
Untitled January 3 2017
Acrylic on canvas
750 x 500 mm
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Untitled January 3 2017 acrylic on canvas 750 x 500 1s
Untitled 1 July 2017
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 mm
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Small Untitled 1 July 2017 500 x 400 s
Untitled March 2017
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 mm
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Small Untitled 1, March 2017 500 x 400 4s
Untitled March 1 2017
Acrylic on canvas
500 x 400 mm
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Small Untitled March 1 2017 500 x 400 2s

Viky Garden was born in Wellington and currently lives in Auckland. A finalist in the NZ Adam Portrait Awards in 1992, 2014 and 2016 and in the Parkin Drawing Awards in 2018, her work is held in private collections in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Canada, USA and Europe.

From her earliest surviving work, ‘Self Portrait at 16, 1977’, Viky Garden has consistently challenged the assumption that portraiture is no longer relevant in contemporary art. Garden has a consistent and focused body of work dating back 25 years. Almost exclusively using herself as the subject, she explores themes of impermanence, self-image, introspection and the female experience.

Garden’s use of shadow in a contemporary narrative – the Greek inspired silhouettes of her Passengers series (2009) and the reinvented darker nursery Nature-Nurture images (2010) – was her entrée into abstract portraiture, inviting a reconsideration of painting method and composition. While her early works were primarily in oil, in 2015 these were replaced by liquid acrylics and brushes replaced with bits of card – a new approach was born. Garden’s recent works offer a rich interplay between gestural mark-making and representation. Her lively brushstrokes simultaneously reveal and conceal the subject, achieving a fine balance that preserves their ambiguity.

Garden’s work, whether it be painting, pinhole photography or sculpture, has, from the very beginning, engaged in a self-reflective study of the political sphere of womanhood, in which she uses her own body as a form of language. She credits her tutor, New Zealand artist Vivian Lynn, for instilling an awareness of feminist perspectives during her formative years in the late 1970s.

Garden’s most recent exhibition at Fe29, GRIT, is an eloquent, yet unapologetic exploration of the physical and emotional challenges faced by women as they transition through menopause. The paintings negotiate the halfway point between the awe-inspiring and the often-shocking changes that invariably lead to re-evaluations of identity and purpose. To illustrate this point, Garden uses the wooden ends of redundant paintbrushes and bits of card to push the paint onto the canvas, employing swatches, streaks and splashes of colour to link each work in a three decades-long journey that is so fluid that her subjects can embody all ages interchangeably.

She also makes use of the canvas selvage (material edge) as part of the work’s narrative, alluding to an approaching brink or limit. By eschewing traditional wooden stretchers commonly associated with portrait painting, Garden works against the conventional taut canvas surface, utilising the natural imperfections and inconsistencies of the fabric to emphasise themes of ageing and transition. These themes are also reflected in the frayed, raw, uneven and unravelling edges that surround each unframed portrait.

Mounted at a slight distance from the wall, these unstretched paintings appear to float or hover – creating their own shadow – an ephemeral effect that speaks to inevitable change through the passing of time.

To see more of Garden’s work, link to Viky Garden’s Miniature Paintings,  Photographs and Monotypes