Tai Shan Schierenberg
Figuring the Landscape
Flowers Gallery, London
2 June - 10 July 2021
TAI SHAN SCHIERENBERG
Ancient Ritual, 2021
Oil on canvas, 180 x 140 cm
© Tai Shan Schierenberg, courtesy of Flowers Gallery
TAI SHAN SCHIERENBERG
Bodies of Water, 2021
Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm
© Tai Shan Schierenberg, courtesy of Flowers Gallery
"During this past year, while the great outdoors has been denied to us, I felt the need to tackle nature in my work again, with a view to investigating our deepseated need for a connection with it, our romantic idealisation of it, and the myths of its power as a panacea." - Tai Shan Schierenberg
Flowers Gallery presents an exhibition of new works created over the last 18 months by British painter TAI SHAN SCHIERENBERG.
In this exhibition, nature is represented in a series of remembered landscapes and seascapes, which appear desolate and unpopulated or sparsely inhabited by lone figures. Tai Shan Schierenberg describes this sequence of works as "selfportraits of sorts," creating archetypal characters and metaphors within the landscape to navigate personal experience.
In paintings such as Mirage, Bodies of Water and No Man is an Island, reflections in the mirrorlike surfaces of lake and ocean suggest states of division or flux. Tai Shan Schierenberg describes these works as contemplating isolation and disconnectedness, while also representing distortions of reality and the nature of illusion.
The painting Ancient Ritual explores our enduring fascination with fire, making reference to the story of Prometheus from Greek Mythology, and his dangerous gift to humankind. Blazing high into the forest sky, the fire appears to be reaching the very limits of control.
The Past is Another Country depicts a fleeting, shifting landscape as seen through the windows of a car. The vehicle is a recurring motif in Tai Shan Schierenberg's paintings, relating to the artist's peripatetic early childhood spent on the road traversing the landscapes of Europe and North Africa. The fluid experience of movement here suggests the passage and cycle of time continuing throughout the generations, a theme that is also strongly reflected in the lunar tide of Old Moon. By equating the rhythms of nature with what he terms the 'seasons' of human experience, Tai Shan Schierenberg raises the question: "when we turn to nature, do we do so to understand and find ourselves?"
TAI SHAN SCHIERENBERG
No Man is an Island, 2020
Oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm
© Tai Shan Schierenberg, courtesy of Flowers Gallery
TAI SHAN SCHIERENBERG
Mirage, 2021
Oil on canvas, 140 x 100 cm
© Tai Shan Schierenberg, courtesy of Flowers Gallery
TAI SHAN SCHIERENBERG
Born in England in 1962, Tai Shan Schierenberg lives and works in London. He graduated from the Slade School of Art in 1987. In 1989 he won first prize in the National Portrait Gallery’s John Player Portrait Award, and was subsequently commissioned to paint Sir John Mortimer for the gallery and further works are held in the museum collection. Notable commissions include Professor Stephen Hawking, Sir John Madejski and a double portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. He was Artist in Residence at West Bromwich Albion football club from 2017-2018 as part of the Channel 4 documentary strand Artist in Residence. Schierenberg also regularly appears as a judge on the Sky Arts series’ Landscape Artist of the Year and Portrait Artist of the Year.
FLOWERS GALLERY
21 Cork Street, London W1S 3LZ
