Description
Chèrie from Maria Rivans
Giclee and Screen print with Diamond Dust and Glosses on Somerset with hand-torn edges
60 x 80cm
Unframed
Limited edition of 75
Maria Rivans’ eye-popping collages explore the idea of existing alternate realities and fantastical other worlds which transport us into a surreal and exciting universe. By appropriating an array of sourced vintage ephemera, Maria seeks to overwhelm us with her compositions by combining vivid and seductive colours with powerful and often humorous imagery.
Best known for her intricate surreal landscapes, pin-up portraits and 3D boxed works, the viewer often experiences a visual and sensory overload from the hundreds of carefully cut-out found elements culled from her huge collection of vintage paraphernalia.
Influenced by the extraordinary colours of Hitchcock films shown in Technicolor and sci-fi TV shows such as Land of the Giants and Planet of the Apes, these heroes from the past have been altered by combining and blending other found imagery scavenged from different eras, thus inviting the viewer into her strange and peculiar world.
Rivans’ collages have a firm running theme of vintage Hollywood films, B Movies and TV trash. The screenplays of vintage films like ‘The Birds, Mildred Pierce and Planet of the Apes’ have been rewritten and reinvented, resulting in newly collaged screen plots which intertwine throughout her body of work, spinning bizarre and dreamlike tales.
The Pin-up series has been evolving rapidly. Each individual movie star develops their own firm identity, as if they were a solid memorable character starring in one of Rivans’ invented scripts. These leading ladies have been highly influenced by strong female actors like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford who made a huge impression on Rivans when she was a child. The Pin-up characters hold qualities of women who are particularly empowered and have recently been named after famous women explorers and inventors.
