Chris Vervain
Artist
Drawings, Sketches & Prints
Many of my drawing and sketches are made in museums and art galleries. Here is a selection of some of them.
I made these detailed drawings of a sculpture of a young man in the V&A Cast Court. I also drew some of the ecclesiastical pieces nearby but felt the need to animate them through a more stylised treatment.
I wanted to capture the energy in two scenes of disaster; one a seascape at Tate Britain and the other a horse out of control; a painting at the National Gallery.
In the same National Gallery room I found a painting in which two characters from ancient Greek literature appear: Antigone leading her blind father Oedipus. The image of a young woman leading an elderly blind man is one I find interesting and I have written two stories based on the idea. However in these the man becomes the unsighted seer Tiresias and the girl, Ismene, Antigone’s sister. In my stylised sketch of the two I hope to express something of the archetypal nature of their relationship.
In a large gallery room at Tate Modern my eye was caught by a panel depicting singers with an installation incorporating various bits of junk and machinery close by and I made this sketch.
Amongst the numerous prints I have made, one was inspired by a figure from a tapestry at the V&A, whilst another was based on a painting in the Guildhall Gallery. Sometimes a newspaper photograph suggests a scene to me as in this last print.
