Artist Profile Maggie Shafran

Artist Statement

In this series, I explore, fragment and translate still life paintings by Jan Van Huysum. Considering the implications of the French word for still life, nature morte, which translates directly to “dead nature” I use drawing as a form of active viewing. I call attention to the carefully inserted details and symbols littered throughout the paintings. By zooming in, cropping, and sapping the images of color, I reveal the human presence and the numerous indicators of death, cycles of life and the passage of time contained within the bountiful energy of the original composition. I sew my fragmented pieces together, recalling the act of Frankenstein stitching flesh from separate bodies to make his monster. Similar to the way Van Huysum painted flowers in the same vase regardless of the impossibility of their coexistence in reality. An element of the grotesque residing within the beautiful, his imaginary bouquets are an exhumation and resurrection. His work exemplifies art’s resistance to the limits of reality and the confines of impermanence, reflecting my own desires to evade endings. I cling to the present through the act of making, an ultimately fruitless attempt to contain the ravages of time.

Artist Biography

I am a London based multidisciplinary artist interested in themes of humanity, memory, fragility, the impermanence of life and the transformational quality of death. I am driven by a desire to preserve and examine objects and relationships. Taking cues from portraiture, appropriation art and still life tradition, I explore different approaches in order to present the world through my point of view. My practice relies on intimate connections with my subjects, a deep examining of their imagery through zooming and cropping that I translate between mediums.

I work in a variety of mediums and processes; including, oils, plaster casting, graphite, photography and collage. I recently completed an MA in painting at UAL Camberwell in 2023 after receiving a Graduate Diploma, with distinction, from The Royal College of Art in 2020. I earned an undergraduate BA in Fine Art at Pitzer College in 2014.