It would be inaccurate to say Denis Versweyveld‘s sculptures have no color; through some trickery of wavelengths, white actually comprises all the colors, and his work is a symphony in white.
The Vergennes artist coats his objects — as well as their pedestals and bases — with plaster, milk paint or limewash. Deprived of what we might consider normal hues, we are left to contemplate mere shapes. In choosing these, Versweyveld leaves no ambiguity: He favors household items such as bottles, cans, bowls, teapots, eggs and pears. Cast or carved, each item suggests the essence of itself: calm and unobtrusive yet very much present. His work makes itself known with a whisper, never a shout.
Small wonder that Versweyveld titled his latest exhibit of sculptures, paintings and drawings “Still Life.” Visitors at the show at Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery in Waterbury can read his explanation of his work: a list of 16 “about” statements. The list begins with “It is about human scale, a portrait of things I live with.” It ends with “It’s about finding a quiet place in a chaotic world.”
Versweyveld’s installation suits the new, light-filled gallery, located directly across Stowe Street from the former one. A bank of windows fronts the room, so owner Whitney Aldrich added an internal wall to provide more hanging space. Though some of Versweyveld’s sculptures, such as “Little Pears,” sit on sturdy, blocky bases, many perch on skinny, four-legged pedestals that he builds from scraps of pine and oak. The relative proportions of sculptures and stands give the works a sense of fragility.
Also, as Versweyveld said of his pedestals in a phone interview, “I think it’s to try to elevate [the objects’] importance, to make them more monumental.” He seeks to find the special in the ordinary.
The artist has a thing for pairs (as well as pears). He might put two items on pedestals with each other, such as the duo “Jugs.” “Tea Kettle Diptych” consists of a kettle on a tall column — all in white, of course — and an adjacent graphite drawing of the sculpture. Making preparatory drawings is a new practice for Versweyveld, he said, but “more recently I’ve spent time with the graphite and oil drawings — I’ve made the drawing and then the 3D [sculpture].”
“Flask” comprises a 53-inch-tall sculpture (including pedestal) and a 22.5-by-30-inch oil-and-graphite drawing on paper that are clearly in dialogue with each other. Both depict a slightly tilted bottle. In the gallery, the artist has placed them so they lean conspiratorially toward each other.
“I wonder what they might say,” Versweyveld mused. “I guess I like to see them paired in that way. [One] lends to the strength of the other.”
White is a constant in Versweyveld’s paintings, too, but often as a harmonic that softens the voices of blue, orange or green. All kinds of exquisite, delicate hues cluster in the shadows. Paradoxically, the artist known for working in white is a master of color.
He is also expert at still-life minimalism. In “Yellow,” a 24-square-inch oil on canvas, Versweyveld places a can at the very corner of a white surface, which juts into but does not fill the ocher-colored background. In “Orange Bowl/White Pitcher,” the titular items huddle on a blocky base, all of which in turn crowds the 18-by-24-inch canvas. The artist variously gives his objects plenty of space or very little, a dynamic that has both a visual and psychological impact.
“Left Handed,” a 20-by-28-inch oil on Arches Cover paper, is a still life with a personal history. Featuring two white eggplant-shaped forms on a white table, the 2019 painting was Versweyveld’s first work executed with his nondominant hand due to a shoulder injury.
The cluster of sculptures in Axel’s framing room may or may not be an indication of the artist’s health. But they do have an air of victory about them, if only because they are very tall. One of them, “Big Pear,” consists of an uneven, four-sided column topped by the outsize fruit. Made of oak, pine, lath, plaster and iron, the piece stands 65.5 inches high. An adjacent pair of vertical works, “IV Plus I,” rises to 76 inches.
The manipulation of scale can be unsettling because it upends viewer expectations — both of objects and our relationship to them. So does cloaking everyday objects in white. Yet Versweyveld gently locates humanity in his inanimate objects, softness in their hard surfaces. Even a murky graphite drawing of a pear lying on its side can evoke an emotional response in attentive viewers. These still lifes are very much alive.
The original print version of this article was headlined “All Is Calm | Denis Versweyveld’s pale palette reveals what is essential”
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This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2023.
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