Description
The Splendour of Peace from Maria Rivans
Giclee and Screenprint with spot varnishes on Somerset
Edition of 75
80 x 110cm
About the print
In a new body of still life works, Rivans celebrates the exuberance of earth, of goodness, and of all things living. An urn by the Venetian artist Giovanni Piranesi takes centre stage, overflowing with flora and fauna that seem to burst with vibrant life. Amongst the heady bouquet, Rivans embeds emblems of the earth’s great magic and mystery: a pomegranate, to symbolise fertility, beauty and eternal life; a budgie, with it’s mystical ability for mimicry; a vintage wristwatch, to remind us that time is only a construct; a bumblebee, keeping the great cycle of life turning; and a ballerina, whose poise and grace symbolise harmony and rhythmic life. Made during the lockdown of 2021, With Love and Kindness, Forever offers a joyful window onto the world – a much needed tonic in a time of confined existence.
Maria Rivans’ eye-popping collages explore the idea of existing alternate realities and fantastical other worlds which transport us into a surreal and exciting universe. By appropriating an array of sourced vintage ephemera, Maria seeks to overwhelm us with her compositions by combining vivid and seductive colours with powerful and often humorous imagery.
Best known for her intricate surreal landscapes, pin-up portraits and 3D boxed works, the viewer often experiences a visual and sensory overload from the hundreds of carefully cut-out found elements culled from her huge collection of vintage paraphernalia.
Influenced by the extraordinary colours of Hitchcock films shown in Technicolor and sci-fi TV shows such as Land of the Giants and Planet of the Apes, these heroes from the past have been altered by combining and blending other found imagery scavenged from different eras, thus inviting the viewer into her strange and peculiar world.
Rivans’ collages have a firm running theme of vintage Hollywood films, B Movies and TV trash. The screenplays of vintage films like ‘The Birds, Mildred Pierce and Planet of the Apes’ have been rewritten and reinvented, resulting in newly collaged screen plots which intertwine throughout her body of work, spinning bizarre and dreamlike tales.
The Pin-up series has been evolving rapidly. Each individual movie star develops their own firm identity, as if they were a solid memorable character starring in one of Rivans’ invented scripts. These leading ladies have been highly influenced by strong female actors like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford who made a huge impression on Rivans when she was a child. The Pin-up characters hold qualities of women who are particularly empowered and have recently been named after famous women explorers and inventors.
