Notes

'In House Sutra: From Cape Town to Kathmandu, the tentative linear form of the house is stranded in a sea of black paint peppered with star/flower like fragments of pasted canvas. Painted along the bottom edge, the words 'From Cape Town to Kathmandu' familiar from other works, bring the world of migrations and meanderings into the fragile dream-space of home.'

'House Sutra: From Cape Town to Kathmandu, 2006, presents a schematic image of a house, filled with white lines in a childlike scrawl. A repeated motif in Vivienne Koorland's paintings, the house floats against a tar-black background, suggesting spatial insecurity and disorientation. That fragmented effect is emphasized by the canvas's stitched - together surface, atop which are glued scintillating pieces of coloured canvas, evenly distributed, evoking flowers or falling snowflakes. As a comforting image of a home built from ruins, it appears to salve an ache; but the reality of dislocation that informs Koorland's practice - she grew up in South Africa and now resides in New York - is never far away.

TJ Demos. (2007) Vivienne Koorland: Freud Museum http://www.viviennekoorland.com/images/exhibit_1264709041.pdf [19th January 2016]

Exhibited

Freud Museum, London, Reisemalheurs (Travel Woes), 2007

Literature

Tamar Garb. (2007) Vivienne Koorland: Reisemalheurs (Travel Woes). London: Freud Museum, illustrated in colour on page 17. Page 18: