vaudoy-en-brie

vaudoy-en-brie
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

vaudoy-en-brie [2007] oil on linen, 30 x 60 cm

another sunday morning brocante in another little village just outside of paris...

beyond the tables with their jumble of colorful plastic toys, stacks of chipped plates and all manner of discarded household goods, beyond the worn linens and torn lace curtains draped onto stone walls, old dress hats still in their tall round boxes, and insipid oil paintings propped up on the sidewalks, beyond even the odd coveted antique piece... are the rows of simple stone houses - as plain and stoic as the lives lived within them - now warming up slowly in the early spring sunshine...

ode to bénodet

ode to bénodet
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

hover over me, your back to the sun, a dark looming sea god with offerings from the depths... ragged golden gowns of salty splendor and sodden luminosity - such is the stuff of myths reissued...

[dress me stretched out on the sand]

adapted from "episodic effusions" by g. verster

on the odet

on the odet
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

on the odet [2007] oil and acrylic on canvas, 90 x 90 cm

her brother's château rises across the river - bound by blood but divided by water...
[we appraise patriarchal stones of fortitude, and another vestigial century flows silently by - shadowy deep and steadfastly wide...as the odet nears the open sea]*

*adapted from "a fall day on the odet" by g. verster, 2004

a fall day on the odet

the path to the river is overgrown.
we slash our way through carefully, finding the bank where we could.
her brother's château rises across the way, downstream from her manoir...
divided by water, bound by blood.
we appraise patriarchal stones of fortitude, as another vestigial century flows silently by.
shadowy deep and steadfastly wide, the odet soon nears its latitude...
and we are but trespassers with grace and a little time in her garden house, folie à deux before the winter rains...

dans les nues...[II]

dans les nues...[II]
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

élever jusqu'aux nues...[finistère sud]

dans les nues...[I]

dans les nues...[I]
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

cumulus congestus in the south finistère...

l'art de vivre à st-ouen

l'art de vivre à st-ouen
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

an oriflamme offering of scattered glasses for any occasion, a lost bear looking for love, micro sex in a bowl...the pavement sideshow goes on at le marché aux puces...

storm clouds over chantilly

storm clouds over chantilly
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

storm clouds over chantilly [2007] diptych, oil on canvas, 40 x 100 cm

as the storm clouds gather over the renaissance skyline, le connétable anne de montmorency rides in haste towards the petit château to prepare for the royal visit of françois I - his presentiments mounting as more dark clouds loom ahead...

la perle des cotes-d'armor

l'île de bréhat
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

l'île de bréhat...

sometimes referred to as "la perle des cotes-d'armor", this twinned island paradise off the coast of northern brittany, l'île de bréhat, is also known as "l'île des fleurs et des rochers roses"...the masses of rugged rocks along the shorelines actually glow a golden pink colour in the sunshine...and the unusually warm microclimate is conducive to lushly blooming gardens of palm, eucalyptus, fig, mimosa and camellia trees, hedges of hydrangeas and the islanders' favourite blue agapanthus...

[a house like me]

[a house like me]
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

casa malaparte [2006] fabric paint on unbleached cotton, 10 x 13 cm, hand-stitched onto black 100% combed cotton sweatshop free t-shirt

casa malaparte, capri [1938-44]...by curzio malaparte + master mason adolfo amitrano

"casa come me"...his "portrait in stone"...iconoclastic, enigmatic, mythic, metaphysical, alluring...

7 bises

7 bises
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

"or join me in megève," he adds, where the snow may not fall this winter - the alps will soon be bald, and skiing but a seasonal memory...

[guide me downhill into that warm chalet of a certain aromatic provenance - and a steamy bach fugue...]

from "episodic effusions" by g.verster

max's brides

max's brides
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

max's brides [2006] oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

she lived discreetly behind a bridal gown boutique on the quai des grands augustins...

[without the vaguest notion of their love stories, she gifted them sticks of lavender incense - while blown away rose petals floated down the seine...]

french chairs V

french chairs V
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

[baby] french chairs V [2006] oil on canvas, 25 x 25 cm

hiding in a left bank attic...

"the origin of the world"

in the musée d'orsay hangs a small painting that will quicken pulses and widen the eyes... the origin of life, as revealed by the artist, is boldly nestled between fleshy thighs and a thick belly, then crowned with lush sable down... this truncated torso, curtly swathed and splayed open on crumpled sheets, purveys an erotic shot so unerringly aimed that no bystander can escape its blunt and powerful blast.
monsieur courbet, cool as sorbet, had seen fit to image the point of creation as indelicately as a pinned butterfly of colossal proportions... an epic genesis, at once universal and singularly sensual, this is the voyeur's dream of the femina non gravitas...

"the origin of the world" by g. verster

courbet's bliss

courbet's bliss
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

Gustave Courbet

"The Origin of the World" [1866] oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

"monsieur courbet, cool as sorbet, had seen fit to image the point of creation as indelicately as a pinned butterfly of colossal proportions..."

from "the origin of the world" by g. verster

the ghosts of caillebotte and his dog...

the ghosts of caillebotte and his dog...
Originally uploaded by gverster_artwork.

the ghosts of caillebotte and his dog at the place du carrousel in the rain [2006] oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm

[inspired by a c.1876 photograph from Caillebotte and his Garden at Yerres, 1991 (Abrams)]

"In the background are the Rohan and Turgot pavilions of the Palais du Louvre. Caillebotte used this snapshot to paint himself standing on the Pont de l'Europe..."