{"id":1853,"date":"2012-02-01T00:10:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T22:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=1853"},"modified":"2025-01-07T12:06:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T12:06:53","slug":"issue-18-artists-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2012\/02\/01\/issue-18-artists-profile\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue #18 \u2013 Artist\u2019s Profile"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vianne Venter<\/h3>\n
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Cover Illustration by Vianne Venter<\/p><\/div>\n

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Tell us about the image on this issue\u2019s cover.<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>
\nWhen we started thinking about cover images for this issue, I was keen to create a new image for one of the stories but the deadline was against us. Then Joe hauled this picture I did for Richard Kunzmann\u2019s story \u2018Lost In Recollection\u2019 (from Issue 8<\/em>), out of the archives of his brain \u2013 he thought it would work perfectly for \u2018The Disposable Man\u2019, by Thomas Carl Sweterlitsch. And I had to agree. It has all the darkness of the story\u2019s sooty rain, and the sense of flight that drives McKinley\u2026 even the blurry, disintegrating edges of the figure itself work with the story. I\u2019m a huge fan of reinventing and reinterpreting art. In fact, for most art forms, I don\u2019t think the work is complete until it\u2019s subjected to the interpretive gaze of the audience. So I love that this piece has gotten a second life, a second story. It\u2019s like an actor taking on a new role.<\/p>\n

What was your medium?<\/em><\/strong>
\nJoe and I actually collaborated on this one. I drew the original on paper using pencil and ink, and Joe overlaid the vertical lines of the rain digitally. My feeling tends to be that the piece needs to be realised by whatever means necessary \u2013 I do in some sense think the image has a right to life, or that it\u2019s waiting to be born, and that my job is to serve as conduit to make that happen. So I\u2019m all for using what ever medium and mix of techniques is needed to get the job done. That goes for collaborating too. The piece was good before Joe got involved, but it wasn\u2019t finished. The rain was part of where it wanted to go. For this reincarnation, Joe tinkered with the colour and contrast a bit too, and I\u2019m really happy with the results. This gives me a sense that the piece is still alive, in progress, evolving. Which makes me very happy.<\/p>\n

Is this typical of your work?<\/em><\/strong>
\nMost of my stuff is figurative, though I occasionally do very realistic renderings of faces or objects. My principal subject is figures, and then usually female, though male faces are drawing me quite strongly at the moment. So yes, this is typical, though the biggest complaint I get when people look at my portfolio is that my work varies too much and they can\u2019t latch onto a style. And my response to that kind of has to be, \u2018Ag shame\u2019. I pretty much feel the same way about that that authors like Lauren Beukes and Sarah Lotz feel about being categorised \u2013 like, could you just try to enjoy the product without worrying so much about what box to put it in?<\/p>\n

What are you working on at the moment?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s been a while since I was really in the routine of drawing consistently, so I\u2019m trying to get back to basics \u2013 figure studies and portraits, just to get the muscles used to working again. But really most of my recent work has been abstracts \u2013 mostly done in pencil or wax crayon while trying to convince my 18-month-old to put more colour on the paper than in her mouth.<\/p>\n

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\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Vianne Venter<\/h3>\n

When we started thinking about cover images for this issue, I was keen to create a new image but the deadline was against us. Then Joe hauled this picture I did for Richard Kunzmann\u2019s story \u2018Lost In Recollection\u2019 (from Issue 8), out of the archives of his brain \u2013 he thought it would work perfectly for \u2018The Disposable Man\u2019, by Thomas Carl Sweterlitsch..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[163,109],"class_list":["post-1853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covers","tag-issue-18","tag-vianne-venter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1853"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3377,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions\/3377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}