Vivien Russe | Art New England
July 4, 2024 | Carl Little
Vivien Russe: Networks
Juxtaposition is an artistic tradition dating back at least to the Surrealists who used it to create dreamlike imagery that created a sense of disorientation. Over the years Portland, Maine-based painter Vivien Russe has built her acrylic paintings around contrasting elements, placing side by side two or more images that play off against each other to create intriguing visual frissons. Some of them recall poet Allen Ginsberg’s “eyeball kicks,” defined as “the juxtapositions of disparate images to create a gap of understanding which the mind fills in with a flash of recognition.”
