Piers Veness

2010-10-08T05:06:00.005+02:00

Current show: Galería Fernando Zubillaga
Caracas, Venezuela

2010-02-11T11:35:00.019+01:00

drawings

murals

forms of time

black paintings

army

2010-01-24T18:16:00.006+01:00

Black Paintings

Piers Veness Black Painting

Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2010
130 x 100 cm (51 x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness Black Painting April 2006 01
Oil on canvas, 2006
125 x 89 cm (49.2 x 35 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness Black Painting April 2006 02

Oil on canvas, 2006
125 x 89 cm (49.2 x 35 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness Black Painting April 2006 03
Oil on canvas, 2006
125 x 89 cm (49.2 x 35 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness Black Painting
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2009
130 x 100 cm (51 x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness Black Painting February 2005 01
Oil on canvas, 2005
150 x 110 cm (59 x 43.3 in) ©Piers Veness

2010-01-24T15:08:00.038+01:00

ARMY: Series of 6 large-format paintings

Piers Veness ARMY#1
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2008
200 x 100 cm (78.7 in x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness ARMY#2
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2008
200 x 100 cm (78.7 in x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness ARMY#3
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2008
200 x 100 cm (78.7 in x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness ARMY#4
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2008
200 x 100 cm (78.7 in x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness ARMY#5
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2008
200 x 100 cm (78.7 in x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

Piers Veness ARMY#6
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2008
200 x 100 cm (78.7 in x 39.4 in) ©Piers Veness

From scar to dance
Patricia Ciriani

How can art represent barbarity? What artistic form or incarnation can be molded out of the horror of war and the monstrosity of its victims?
Between the photographs of soldiers mutilated in the First World War gathered by Ernst Friedrich, the evanescent abstractions of Fautrier or Wols, and the reaffirmation of a presence which looms out of fractures and scars, the English painter Piers Veness takes the third path. Employing Phillip Guston´s flat brushwork from the 70s and a similar strident pink, he creates figures enclosed in black which stand out crudely from a neutral background.

Photo of a wounded soldier. From the book Krieg dem Kriege, Ernst Friedrich, Berlín, 1924.
Piers Veness, ARMY study nº3, 2006, acrylic on card, 30 x 21 cm. © Piers Veness.

In his paintings Veness discards any narrative figuration in order to obtain a monumental, frontal presence on a human scale. The dismembered bodies establish a dance, unfolding themselves in a poignant attempt to reach one another and penetrate their fractures.
Our respect and our revulsion are provoked as much from the aggressive colouring as the head-on cry of the figures, like a squad of injured generals. Each form gesticulates contorsions of survival, fixed in the eternal scar of our gaze.

The geometric rigour and repetition touch upon a hieratical presence found within the statues of goddesses which Veness would contemplate on his visits to the British Museum, and which so influenced the murals from his previous series, “Black Paintings” (2003-2006). Here too the viewer´s sensibilities are dominated by the imposing size of the paintings, the firm repetition of motive and through the way the pieces seem to levitate.

Installation view of ARMY, Square Studio, Barcelona, 2008

2009-02-19T23:21:00.000+01:00

drawings for "Army"

Piers Veness studies for ARMY
Charcoal and pencil on paper, 2007
100 x 50 cm (39.4 x 19.7 in) ©Piers Veness

2008-04-22T19:26:00.005+02:00

Murals

Mural. Household emulsion paint and pencil. 150 x 250 cm. April 2007
"Murals and Drawings", tienda derecha, Barcelona, April 2oo7

Mural. Household emulsion paint and pencil. 150 x 250 cm. April 2007
"Murals and Drawings", tienda derecha, Barcelona, April 2oo7

We all have a sense of scale based on our own size. It is a scale which is primal as opposed to systems of measurement created by the human intellect. Not only does it measure size, but also speed, weight, danger. The Boabab trees in Senegal can reach a diameter of 10 metres, and the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico is 75 metres high , but these are just numbers. The true measurement occurs when one stands in front (or beneath) either of these monuments. One will also feel the power of these objects.

Boabab tree, Senegal / Teotihuacan, Mexico

These ideas of measurement are intrinsic to the murals project, of the impact of scale upon the viewer. Just two colours have been used: black and blue. The black is heavy, impenetrable, a solid mass. In stark contrast the blue is as infinite as the sky – using it as a background gives a sense of the sheer size of the black form in the way a mountain soars above the trees until its sole frame is the sky. The line of the black form is reiterated with pencil, charging the energy that moves around it.

Piers Veness, Mural designs, 2006, 52 x 25 cm, acrylic and pencil on card.

Images of installation by Katherine Di Turi. Click on image to start animation
Imágenes de la instalación por Katherine Di Turi. Pinche la imagen para empezar

2008-02-25T13:00:00.004+01:00

Forms of Time 2001 - 2002

Piers Veness, Verano 2002 10
2002 oil on canvas
98 x 70 cm / 38.6 in x 27.6 in

Piers Veness, Verano 2002 05 2002 oil on canvas
120 x 86 cm / 47.2 in x 33.9 in

Piers Veness, Verano 2002 09
2002 oil on canvas
120 x 86 cm/ 47.2 in x 33.9 in

“Stones propose another sense of time, whereby the past, the deep past of the planet, proffers a meagre yet massive support to human acts of resistence, as if the veins of metal in rock led to our veins of blood.” John Berger, “The Shape of a Pocket” (Bloomsbury, 2001), p. 239.

Out in the English countryside stand a group of stones whose original purpose has long been forgotten, but in which a pulse of life beats mesmerisingly. Some of the larger stones measure the height of three men, their roughly-hewn rectangular shape midway between the fashioning by people´s hands and a natural formation by the elements. That they are a monument is beyond doubt, but as to what perhaps isn´t so important, for each new age find their own meanings within the repetitve earthly forms. Against their long history, our own lifespan seems fleeting; against their heavy durability our bodies appear immensely fragile.

Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England, 3100 BC

Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacán, Mexico, 100 AD

It isn´t just our own ancient monuments that make us feel this way. In nature one can find monuments such as the sublime curves of a sand dune or the chilling depths of a crevasse. In a sense, these monuments are even more embued with life than Stonehenge - the sand dune rolls inoxeribly forward, the crevasse broadens or deepens. What are we when compared to them?

Sand Dune, Namib Desert

Crevasse, New Zealand

In Forms of Time (2001 - 2002), each canvas, a simple geometric form fills the space. It divides the canvas into left, right and centre. Whilst left and right are expanses of heavy grey, scratched in places to reveal a vibrant orange undercolour, it is in the centre where the action takes place. A delicate pinkish stain runs down the space neatly created by left and right. Unlike the sentinel grey form, the pink follows no symmetry except for a downward movement, therefore bringing an unbalancing element to the whole composition. Its glaring freshness contrasts with the sullen, uniform grey. Against the static, layered, timeless form, the stain bursts with the energy of a single strike.

Piers Veness working in his studio, Madrid, November 2002
photo: Katherine Di Turi

2008-01-01T23:13:00.006+01:00

Square Studio

Katherine Di Turi

Tienda Derecha

Simon Zabell

Michael Swaney

Jutta Immenkötter

Daniel Jacoby

Blanca Haddad

Galería Fernando Zubillaga

artcollecting.co.uk

2007-03-12T19:02:00.009+01:00

Piers Veness was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1974. He received a BA in Fine Art and Drama at University College Northampton, and an MA in Scenography at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He currently lives and works between Barcelona and London

His work has been shown in various exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid and London. At the same time he has worked on various designs for theatre productions, and is a founding member of Square Studio, an experimental space for contemporary art.

Piers Veness
1974 Portsmouth, England.

2005 - present Co-founder of the experimental art space Square Studio, Barcelona.
Working as exhibition curator, organizer and press officer on each exhibition; liaising with press, public and artists.

EDUCATION
1998-2000 Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, London.
M.A Theatre Design. Awarded Distinction

1995-1998 NENE University College Northampton, Northampton.
Combined Studies Degree in Art, Drama and Music. Awarded First Class

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS
2010 Urban Organic (upcoming)
El Escaparate, Barcelona

2010 Army (upcoming)
Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente, Madrid

2008 Army 04 July – 01 August
Square Studio, Barcelona

2007 Piers Veness: Paintings 08 October – 10 November
Candela Raval, Barcelona

2007 Murals and Drawings 05 April – 04 May
Tienda Derecha, Barcelona

2005 Piers Veness 26 May – 29 June
Galeria Siesta, Barcelona

2000 Recent Lifedrawings 25 March – 24 April
Pearson Gallery, University College London

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2009 Tallers Oberts Poble Sec 02 - 16 October, Barcelona

2008 Premio de Pintura La Mútua de Granollers
01 – 15 November, Barcelona

2007 2nd Torres García Painting Award Ciutat de Mataró 2007
07 June – 29 July, Mataró

2006 December Collective 01 December – 05 January
Galería Kunsthaus, Barcelona

2005 Pretty Big Wall 25 November – 20 December
Square Studio, Barcelona

2005 Trazos 20 May – 17 June
Square Studio, Barcelona

2000 MA Postgraduate Show, June
Slade School of Fine Art, London

THEATRE DESIGN
2006 Actor and Set Designer for The Dumb Waiter, Harold Pinter
Riereta Theatre, Barcelona

2005 Assistant Set Designer for Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Steve Martin
Riereta Theatre, Barcelona

2004 Assistant Set Designer for All in the Timing, David Ives
Riereta Theatre, Barcelona

2000 Set Designer for Mojo, Jez Butterworth
Drayton Court Theatre, London

2000 Set Designer for Sexual Perversity in Chicago, David Mamet
Garage Theatre, University College London

TEACHING AND OTHER EXPERIENCE
2004- present Studio Assistant for the artist Soledad Sevilla, Barcelona

2003 Theatre Design Summer Course at Slade School of Fine Art, London
Head Tutor

2001 Art Foundation Summer Course at Slade School of Fine Art, London
Assistant Tutor

COLLECTIONS
Private collections in London, Barcelona and Caracas.

2007-02-01T23:03:00.004+01:00

piers@piersveness.com
Calle Nou de la Rambla, 180, bajos 1º
08004 BARCELONA
Spain

0034 678 463 532