Tai-Shan Schierenberg

Glass
2004
Oil on copper

Tai-Shan Schierenberg is a painter of portraits, figures and landscapes. He studies at St.Martin’s College and The Slade Schools of Art (1981-87) and has subsequently had one-man shows at Flowers East in Hackney.



Schierenberg’s work generally consists of intimate portraits of family and friends. However, in 1989 he won first prize in the National Portrait Gallery’s John Player Portrait Award and as part of the price was commissioned to paint the portrait or playwright John Mortimer for the Gallery’s collection. He has also painted portraits of Lord Carrington (1994), Lord Sainsbury (2002) and most recently Seamus Heaney (2004). All of which are held at the National Portrait Gallery.



His subtle landscapes show remarkable insight into the content – psychological and aesthetic – of his work. Schierenberg sees the paint as not only a medium for expressing his ideas but he also uses the paint as flesh. His work is both abstract and realist; tense but sensitive; grand and inconclusive; violent and melancholic; physically intense and aesthetically detached.



He, like Richard Diebenkorn, uses bold colours and brush strokes to create light and dark areas on the object. This piece, called ‘glass’ highlights this use of stroke. The crisp markings really create a sense of the glass and the light reflecting off it. The simplicity of the composition adds to the impact of the confident stokes. There is also the straight line going down from the left to the right, this line can be seen in all three of the pictures shown here. It is a prominent feature in his work. It helps the viewers eye be drawn down to the reflection of the glass and the light shining through it. I also think the light reflections in the glass add to the whole piece, as they allow more of the glass’s detail to be picked up upon. I really enjoy this piece, as it is so simple and uncomplicated.



However, studying the piece in more detail, I believe, the simplicity of the piece is its secret; there is a deeper meaning/secret story in this piece, hidden in the glass. Where has the glass been? Why this glass? If you look at the piece in this way it develops beyond the ‘simple’ piece I first thought it was.