Vivian Greven
Biography
Vivian Greven (b. 1985, Bonn, Germany) is a contemporary artist whose work explores the intricacies of human connection through a distinctly modern lens. Grounded in classical references yet attuned to the aesthetics of the digital age, Greven’s works blur the boundaries between tradition and transformation.
Greven’s compositions draw from Greco-Roman sculptural forms and the visual smoothness of screen-based media, reconfiguring them into fragmented, atemporal tableaux. Her figures often inhabit ambiguous emotional and physical states, arms reaching, lips parting, bodies suspended in moments of longing or transition. These gestures, simultaneously intimate and distant, evoke both mythic archetypes and the coded language of contemporary desire.
Surface plays a central role in her work. Polished gradients and hyper-smooth brushwork are ruptured by bursts of saturated colour, abrupt cropping, or digital-like distortions. These interventions speak to the fractured nature of perception in an era shaped by technology, while also hinting at the emotional volatility behind seemingly serene facades.
Vivian Greven’s paintings ultimately function as meditations on vulnerability, intimacy, and the evolving representation of the human form, spaces where the ancient and the algorithmic converge to probe the eternal need for connection.
Works
