There’s a sense of abundant life in Vera Klute’s new exhibition of boldly coloured cropped images of woodlands and plants …
Who or what kickstarted your interest in art?
I’m from a rural area, so there weren’t many exhibitions or museums around. My dad used to paint a bit before I was born and he had copied several paintings by van Gogh, Gaugin and some early Picasso that were decorating our house when I was small. I never knew they were fakes until I was a lot older! I was always in awe of these beautiful paintings because, in fairness, they are excellent copies.
I got into art myself because I like making things. There’s nothing more enjoyable than sketching or painting for a few hours, or gathering things from around the studio and house to try to make an idea come to life. Even though I often have a vague idea what I would like the outcome to be, I usually don’t know how to get there. For me, that’s what keeps it interesting. When I get to the point where I have a routine and strategy, I get so bored that I tend to move on to the next thing. This could be a different way of painting, a new sculptural material or a new technical process to explore. In this way, I tend to accumulate a lot of technical niche skills that I sometimes revisit with other projects or sometimes they turn out to be completely useless, such as my very short stint with taxidermy!
How and where do you work?
I work in my studio in my home. I take photos when I’m out and about to help me remember things. Often, the photos don’t capture exactly what I’m looking for, so the paintings are a combination of the reference photo, my memory and what I think it should look like. There is no benefit in copying a photo exactly as it is. Even with portraits, I don’t follow the photos directly. I think a lot of the time photos aren’t a good likeness of the person, so the images need a bit of tweaking to capture the person overall – and that’s the advantage of painting.
You work across many mediums and genres from sculpture to portraiture. Your latest exhibition is another direction into plant life. Can you tell us about the inspiration for Petals & Pulp?
I’m really fascinated by textures, colours and patterns in the natural world. I think plants have such a wide variety of tactile qualities and sensory properties. And the best thing is that these textures and colours are constantly changing: over the course of the day with changing light, over the seasons or even over years with parts growing or rotting away. Nature is chaotic but full of patterns at the same time. Plants grow according to their own individual patterns, they grow into each other and overpower each other while the forces of nature such as wind, sun and water supply force this chaos into bigger dynamic patterns. It’s overwhelming, but at the same time calming to see such complexity and order.
Need to know: see Vera Klute’s exhibition “Petals & Pulp” at The Molesworth Gallery, Dublin 2 until December 23. www.molesworthgallery.com
SEE MORE: Artistic License – Annika Berglund
