Overview
The paintings depict individuals at different stages of life: children, young men and women, through to the elderly, provoking poignant thoughts of time passing and the inescapable transience of human existence.
Tai-Shan Schierenberg will present a new series of portraits on a large-scale in his coming exhibition at Flowers East. The paintings depict individuals at different stages of life: children, young men and women, through to the elderly, provoking poignant thoughts of time passing and the inescapable transience of human existence.
Since finishing his studies at St Martin's School of Art and the Slade, Schierenberg has completed significant portrait commissions including Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip, Lord Sainsbury, the playwright John Mortimer and Seamus Heaney; the latter three paintings hang in the National Portrait Gallery.
"In this latest series of portraits I'm trying to work out the nature of time and why I increasingly seem to be out of it. Not only about my fear of running out of time, but also my inability to live fully in it anymore due to the accumulation of experiences and responsibilities over time.
I look at the faces around me and find I'm not the only one "out of time". I see it in the adolescent, between the child and the adult in him, the mother of teenage daughters, and the old man withdrawn from society - portraits of others, but they seem to be also self-portraits of sorts, as I recognise experiences I've had and discover others I will be having." (Tai-Shan Schierenberg)
The exhibition coincides with the publication of Tai-Shan Schierenberg's monograph, written by William Packer and published by Momentum.
The paintings depict individuals at different stages of life: children, young men and women, through to the elderly, provoking poignant thoughts of time passing and the inescapable transience of human existence.
