Vivienne Koorland Biography

South African artist Vivienne Koorland's hand-hewn, habitually recycled paintings - along with her maps, poems, songs and stories - explore the vexed problematic of language and the impossibility of narrative in painting. Eschewing conventional objective painting practice on the one hand, and pure abstraction on the other, her representations on linen and stitched burlap of highly acculturated kitsch images of plants and animals, words, musical notes and quotations address the contested terrain of collective experience through overdetermined revisions of history, while trafficking in the tropes that signify them. Regarding herself as a de-skilled 'History Painter' whose project is subverting prevailing constructions of history, in a collision of accident and purpose where no trace is deemed too insignificant, she re-makes drawings, fragments and markings by often deracinated forgotten persons or unwitting artists into monumental paintings as an act of triumph and validation over rupture, ruin and annihilation.

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Koorland graduated with a BA in Fine Art and Art History from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town in 1977, after which she travelled to West Berlin to complete her Meisterschulerin (MFA) at the Hochschule (now Institut) der Kunste in 1981. She then spent two years at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris, before arriving, via Bayreuth, to Columbia University in New York where she obtained her MFA in Painting and Printmaking in 1984. Prominent exhibitions include William Kentridge and Vivienne Koorland: Conversations in Letters and Lines, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (2017); Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA (2011); HomeLands / LandMarks: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Haunch of Venison, London, UK (2008); Reisemalheurs (Travel Woes), The Freud Museum, London, UK (2007); and _Contents, Songbooks and Other Painting_s, College of Staten Island, New York, NY, USA (2004).

Text courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery.

Vivienne Koorland
featured artworks

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Marne-Armentières by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting, works on paper
Vivienne Koorland Marne-Armentières, 1993 Oil, lead, tar, wax, tape and bookleaves on linen
64.8 x 55.9 cm
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PEGASUS by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting, works on paper
Vivienne Koorland PEGASUS, 2020 Oil paint, printed roadmap from 1960, on stitched linen and burlap
213.5 x 249 cm
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Small Signpost Painting with Stendhal Script by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting, works on paper
Vivienne Koorland Small Signpost Painting with Stendhal Script, 1995 Oil and paper on linen
40.6 x 34.3 cm
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Castle II by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting, works on paper
Vivienne Koorland Castle II, 2019 Oil and phosphorescent acrylic on linen
61 x 51 cm
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Wannsee by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting
Vivienne Koorland Wannsee, 1995 Oil, newsprint and glue on linen
61 x 50.8 cm
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TEREZIN PAINTING: Josef by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting, works on paper, sculpture
Vivienne Koorland TEREZIN PAINTING: Josef, 1991 Oil on linen set into wood mantel
139.7 x 152.4 x 20.3 cm
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JAN van RIEBEECK'S MAP: Königsberg by Vivienne Koorland contemporary artwork painting, works on paper
Vivienne Koorland JAN van RIEBEECK'S MAP: Königsberg, 2017 Oil, pigment and twine on linen and burlap
213.4 x 248.9 cm
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Vivienne Koorland
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Richard Saltoun Gallery contemporary art gallery in London, United Kingdom
Richard Saltoun Gallery London, New York, Rome

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