VIRGINIA VERRAN Jeffrey Dennis talks to Virginia Verran in her studio in Bethnal Green, London, March 31st 2005
VIRGINIA VERRAN … that’s something that’s changed a lot. The paintings used to have that black or predominantly pink or red covered right over the whole stretcher and I’ve stopped that. JEFFREY DENNIS There’s quite large areas of just primer, ground. VV It makes it slightly more awkward and less like a space you can just look into: more staccato marks, less depth of space. There used to be maybe six or seven layers of paint so it would be quite dense. JD I remember you saying something about shifting the paintings away from being an image of a figure or something, right back into the realm of optics. In the older work would there more recession, a feeling that there would be this imaginary space? VV Yes, and things caught in between. But what’s been consistent throughout has been the rubbing back - absolutely fundamental: if you want a sense of body, or skin or something that’s how I get there. JD Its quite unusual as a way of working the material: I know Callum Innes does those things where he dissolves paint, but that seems more like a performance that’s ‘out there’. With you it’s more like you’re trying to find something. VV Absolutely. It’s all about that. It takes quite along time. I might rub an area away and it’s just nothing … just rubbed away! I’m not always going to find it. The problem with that painting that I binned recently was that it didn’t really work from the start and the first couple of days are quite critical. This new one: I cancelled all sorts of appointments last week because I knew that if it didn’t work on the first day I had to try things on the second day. JD You had to stick with it? VV Really I knew that if I didn’t get it on the second day I would lose it: it’s really
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