Casper Verborg

The interaction between the paint and the image it represents – and therefore its meaning – is essential in the paintings of Casper Verborg, just as the interaction between the painting and the viewer. Painting is a visual medium, which means that it always represents something outside the painting itself. A painting is not only an image; it is a statement about the paint and the act of painting.

In Verborg’s paintings, two main themes can be distinguished: the face and the narrative. A figurative painting is in fact a narrative by nature, everyone is a storyteller, so when confronted with an image, you start to naturally create a narrative around it. When looking at a portrait (or a painted face) you will start to wonder: what is going on? What is he or she thinking about? The stories given to his paintings might stir equivocal feeling. There remains a big difference between the paint and the image it represents. Can these two go along together? Seeing a (narrative) picture as an evolving situation might seem natural, but at the same time there remains a persistent gap between the picture and the narrative it entails. Despite the apparent connection between the narrative and the painting, there is an inevitable disruption between the two of them.

Exhibited at Griffin Gallery in Saatchi Showdown: Painted Faces in December 2013.

BORN

1981

EDUCATION

MA – School of Arts KASK, Ghent, 2013

(Last updated 14.11.2014)