artist statement

I've always been fascinated with the way the light falls in a room or on an object, the way the awareness of the light can make you very aware of where you are and of that moment in time. It's a capturing of the moment in your memory, like a photograph, with all the memories attached to that moment, that memory of the light.

When the term 'still life' is used, dark, airless images of skulls, rotting fruit and hourglasses often spring to mind. My paintings, however, are not in the vanitas style; they are not intended to be gothic, sombre or eschatological meditations on life and death. Rather, the focus is more earthly: human possessions and activities.

Many of the objects in my paintings have symbolic meanings: eggs, pomegranates, apples, fish and jars. Those symbolic meanings (life, creativity, knowledge, abundance, transformation, family history) resonate: people like to make connections, to see meaning and stories in things. Some of the things are designed for contemplation: a Chinese ginger jar holds the past and future in it, a symbol on a plate showing a single fish means 'all' or 'whole'. In some way, however, all of the objects speak to the viewer, triggering a narrative which is already present in an elemental way inside that person.

Other objects through their shape and form imply animation or a human presence-fruit and vessels are anthropomorphous-pears and persimmons can possess rumps or bellies, a bowl has a womanly form. Jugs and bowls, objects that are associated with ritualistic activities such as eating, drinking and washing, feature in many of the works. These objects are aged and worn; they are handmade, and they honour the humans who have used them over time. This idea of ritualistic use or ritual suggests a continuance or abidance that is in contrast with the temporal impermanence of the obejcts themselves-'nature mort'.

The drapery adds another layer, suggesting not only ritual and ceremony, something deliberate and set up, but a place to expect drama: a stage, theatre, or tableau. Colour is significant: discarded robes and clothing, deconsecrated altar cloths, robes and vestments, and echoes of the bathing and bedroom images of Bonnard and Ingres, artists that I look to for inspiration in the composition of my work. Artists like Bonnard, Degas and Vuillard, who, using the lessons learnt from earlier artists such as Ingres and Piero Della Francesca, created something that was of its time.

Using line and geometry together with chosen objects, I try to create a tension between the ideal and the real. Lining up, piling up and setting up the objects, often in a precariously balanced composition. Implied in the idea of balance however is always that of unbalance or imbalance. The imagined becomes real, order turns to chaos, but if you stop for a moment, something else appears. This is what I like about the genre, the contemplative potential in it, the suggestion of the kinetic in the static, the metaphysical promise and paradox present in the very words 'still life'.

Crispin Akerman