Story; Countenance 

Tania Rivilis’s painting ‘Story; Countenance’ is made with oil paint, a material with a long and storied history. The medium of oil has a significant impact on the appearance of this piece. Unlike other paints, oil dries slowly, allowing for layers of pigment to be applied and blended over time, and the artist has evidently taken full advantage of that. You can see the thickness of the material, its viscosity, in the brushstrokes. These build up a palpable sense of volume, light and shadow. The result is a highly tactile surface, with areas of impasto that catch the light, and thinner glazes that allow the underlayers to show through. In these passages, you can see Rivilis’s debt to traditions of figuration and portraiture. By using these time-honored techniques, she imbues her subjects with an intensity and intimacy that speaks to the emotional power of the encounter between two people. Considering the materials, making and context is key to understanding the full meaning of an artwork, challenging traditional distinctions between fine art and craft.