Ann Craven’s paintings depict a peach-pink budgerigar looming towards us like a diminutive Godzilla. Set against a brilliant blue sky, it assumes an almost monumental presence that is at once comic and slightly menacing. It’s a simple enough conceit, but an effective one, which unfortunately makes the remainder of Craven’s new body of paintings feel all the more inadequate.
The suggestion of rapid movement and the immediately visible influence of photography are somewhat at odds with the tranquil and traditional nature of the image, but the disjunction is so slight that the impression it leaves soon fades. Craven’s occupation of an ambiguous middle ground is a well-intentioned attempt at subtlety that, sadly, comes off as mere indecision.
Ann Craven’s favourite subject is exotic birds.
(Michael Wilson)
Let's drink to the source: www.frieze.com/issue/review/ann_craven
She was born in Boston, USA, in 1967. Now lives and works in NYC.
