Caryn Scrimgeour’s paintings are obsessively immaculate – a manifestation of intense attention to detail and an extraordinary command of her palette. Her table settings intrigue and fascinate by juxtaposing fragile and precious curios with commonplace objects, each exquisitely rendered. Rich in symbolism, her work is reminiscent of still life paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. She uses ephemeral objects – blossoms, birds’ eggs and glistening fruit – to remind us of our fleeting existence.
Scrimgeour’s paintings are puzzles, much like our identities, made up of fragments freighted with memories and experience. They are vanitas paintings for our age, hinting at the fragility and transitory nature of our lives. Similarly, the fragments recorded are small monuments to the human desire to leave what Antony Gormley describes as ‘a trace of our living and dying on the face of an indifferent universe.’*
* Antony Gormley, interview with the Financial Times, 2015
Contact: info@everardlondon.com
Photo credit: Michael Hall
Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.