Artist Statement:
"It is important to know that this is the only real life; it is not a place for feeling nostalgic about another one. Through the understanding of time - the acceleration of which we can physically feel - and through the vis-à-vis of a living human model, a pause is created. A place is created for the emergence of the present. Every line and every brushstroke is concrete, just like every meeting with this person, every dream and every thought. Making a thought into a technical work enables us to see how the ideal becomes material. Observing the movement, participating in it - this process is what gives life meaning and enables us to experience joy and suffering."
A solo show of Kristine Narvida's fine art series will appear at the pop-up gallery, 'Futur eins – Blitztauf', in the centre of Potsdam, Charlottenstr. 100, from 11 to 23 March and at the Rhy Art Salon Basel from 16 to 19 June 2022.
A Viewer's Response:
Perhaps the first thing one notices about Narvida's paintings is their eerie quality. Save for glimpses of golden, greenish light, her canvases are saturated with melancholic swathes of darkness. Her palette brings to mind that of Rembrandt, her style drawn from older masters, though with a modern edge. Some areas with rough brushstrokes enable the viewer to see the woven surface of the canvas, giving the paintings a textured quality that engages the eye with even the darker surrounds that might otherwise recede into nothingness.
Each painting reveals a striking figure (or two) and establishes a very human connection. It is an intimate moment, since the minimal use of form in the background draws all the attention to the individual. Narvida succeeds in crystallizing a moment and a pervasive mood. With a certain artistic irony, the misty quality of her work births a remarkable clarity. The child's rounded face staring into an undisclosed distance; the woman with her head tilted back and her hand outstretched in an ecstatic or dream-like experience; the mute stare of the blue-eyed figure - all give the viewer a glimpse of something private and profound. Time is paused and a magnifying glass is held up to the human experience.
About Kristine Narvida's Art:
The relationship between certain parts of a work and its entirety excites Narvida. She shapes a space of solitude and the work that evolves within has its own life, defiantly independent of her. Narvida uses colour as a powerful accent and wonders at how colours are able maintain a constant tension between dimensions wherein any awareness of fulfilment can disappear in an instant. Her probing explorations involve clear, form-expressed messages in which what is present seeks the truth. This involves knowledge, experience and an explanation. Narvida goes through this process in order to overcome herself; it is what gives her joy as a creator.