GFM: I have a painting of yours of a single white rose. It is as much about understanding the paint as it is about the rose. You have as complicated a relationship with that palette on that canvas as you have with the image of the rose itself.
CV: Well, that’s very understanding of you. I put a white rose against a pale background; I wanted to explore that whiteness. I didn’t know what would happen. I mean, what is white? How white is each piece? I had to ask myself whether this petal was cooler, warmer, darker or lighter than that petal.
Mme Alfred Carrière I
oil on canvas 2003
35.5 x 30.8 cm
Mme Alfred Carrière II
oil on canvas 2003
35.5 x 30.8 cm
GFM: Being in the moment with the subject – that seems to be what you are committed to. When I think about your paintings the kind of words that occur to me are stillness, quiet, serenity, focus and attention.
CV: It’s the looking that is absorbing, looking very hard.
GFM: It’s a quiet thing. Not so many people want to give that kind of attention and that’s part of our role as artists. I think of Winifred Nicholson; she embodied a number of ideas and values that I also associate with you. If you stand still, embedded, things will come to you.
Garry Fabian Miller and Charlotte Verity in conversation, 2016
