Tai-Shan Schierenberg

Brighter Later & A Roman Journal

Tai-Shan Schierenberg is highly regarded for his arresting portraits and depictions of the Norfolk landscape, executed in a succulent gestural painterly style. Whilst he has forged an international reputation that has lead to his work being acquired by prestigious institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery, he continually seeks new subjects and methods of approaching them. In his own words, he describes two recent but very different projects, which on reflection have provided impetus for his practice as a whole:

Brighter Later
Painting and painting and painting, endlessly exploring ideas in paint on canvas, always painting my way. Finding that over time I can't see the trees for the paint. Sometimes its good to try a new way, a different path, expose oneself to the vagaries of chance - and see the trees again.

A Roman Journal
Last summer I spent a month painting in Rome. Following in the steps of Corot, Ingres, and Thomas Jones et al I thought I'd be painting a contemporary version of the classic views; maybe a rotting aqueduct, a view of the coliseum, the church dotted skyline at dusk.

But after a few weeks of living there my eyes focused in beyond the great sights and on to particular things with their differing structures and textures and light, which I then explored in paint.

Also my daily life got a weight and texture of its own; it had a lighter everydayish sort of feeling, connected to the grand surroundings but less dictated by it.
The paintings and photographs in this journal are about the relationship between the weight of culture and history and the apparent lightness of everyday life.