Behold : Vivien Kohler Art.

We chat with Vivien about life and his art.

Which things influences in your art?

I draw influence from various aspects of life. As early as I can remember I was always making and not just painting. My Father being an engineer emulated the making process and got my brother and I involved in various projects around the house. As a kid I really loved getting to play with all my Dad’s tools and machinery making and fixing things. This making process is still an integral part of my art making practice. Then as a teenager I vividly remember standing in front of Wille Bester and Cecil Skotnes’s works for the first time and having the revelation that I wanted to be an artist.

As an artist I tend to find inspiration in most aspects of life. In my experience creativity needs to find expression and latches onto whatever is around it. Because of this I try to feed my creativity with as much positivity as possible. I believe that life is as much a spiritual journey as it is a physical and emotional one. As part of my practice I try to reference the influence of the spiritual aspect of life aswell.

What motivates your themes?

I have found that my themes are birthed from internal processes and ruminations which are influenced by a multitude of sources. Sometimes conversations, sometimes music lyrics or perhaps something I’ve read. Admittedly for me the biggest motivator is emotion. I tend to start with emotion, and through my working process I catch up to meaning and concept. For me the meaning or concept is just the vehicle for the emotion. I am a firm believer in The Divine and it is important to me that the emotion conveyed is accessed through The Spirit. For me that is the source of all true relevant and pertinent inspiration.

For people who have not seen the work themselves, do you paint on plates or is it all

painted?

I do not paint on actual plates. In fact none of the elements contained in the Gallery MOMO exhibition are real. The are all hand painted on treated canvas or hand painted cast resin as is the case with the cardboard and parquet.

Do you listen to music while you paint?

Music is a huge part of my process. In fact many of my titles are taken from lyrics that have impacted me through the process of making the work. Music being another aspect of creative expression I find that various expressive flows compliment and feed each other. In that way I use music to feed my studio practice. I am very particular about the music that feeds my studio time. I try to play music that has more positive lyrical content.

Who is your favourite artist?

To this day Willie Bester and Cecil Skotnes are still on top of my list. But I have a huge respect and fondness for the works of Anselm Kiefer. His scale, expressiveness, material usage and thought processes are highly intriguing.

What are your favourite movies?

I am a kid of the 80’s and 90’s so movies like The Goonies, The Neverending Story, Indiana Jones and The Last Starfighter I still really love. I am a sucker for anything escapist.

What do you do if you are not working?

Because my works are so labour intensive and time consuming I try to do as little as possible when not working. My down time usually involves spending time with family, watching a few documentaries or catching up on series and movies I’ve missed.

If you could live anywhere, where would that be?

I’m not sure to be honest. For me it’s not necessarily about geographic location but more about who is around you. Home is where the heart is type of situation. But if I was forced to choose, I recently had a solo exhibition in London and absolutely loved it there. Just the ease of living was a breath of fresh air.

Who would you most like to meet?

I’d love to meet someone like Nathaniel Mary Quinn. The way he thinks is so honest and inspiring.

How long does it take to complete one of your works, more or less?

Depending on the scale my works usually takes about a month to complete. My process isn’t just about painting. It begins with the emotion and initial idea. I will then photograph a suitable model and then photoshop various elements together to figure out the correct composition for the artwork. From that point once I’ve collected the various materials I need I will start casting the pieces in resin and then cut and assemble the pieces together. Then I start painting. It’s quite a process but I take time to enjoy every aspect of the process. For me the process is as important as the end result.

What is your next dream you want to achieve?

I would love to have an international museum exhibition.

Vivien Kohler was born in Cape Town in 1976, and lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He received his National Diploma in Fine Art from the Ruth Prowse School of Art and Design, Cape Town, 2000. In 2017 Kohler received the Thami Mnyele Sculpture Merit Award, in 2013 won the Lovell Gallery Artist Competition, and in 2012 won the ItWeb/Brainstorm Competition with an entry commissioned by Vodacom. His work is housed in both private and public collections including the Nando's Collection, the Hollard Collection, Vodacom Collection, SAB, Fusion UK, UNISA Gallery Collection, Artbank SA, William Humphreys Art Gallery Collection, Freedom Park Collection (PTA) and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, based in Geneva, Switzerland

Kohler has produced nine solo shows to date:
This too shall come to pass (Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg, 2022),Esteemed Heads II (1XRUN, Detroit, USA, June 2021), Esteemed Heads (1XRUN,
Detroit, USA, January 2021), r3:FORM4re (Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg, 2019),
At the Still Point of the Turning World (Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London, 2018),
Clay Opera (Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London, 2017), Residuum (Ilse Schermers Art Gallery, Franschhoek, 2016), De(re)tritus (Lovell Gallery, Cape Town, 2014), and Given to Fly (Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town, 2012).

Selected group exhibitions include:
What connects us (1XRUN, Detroit, USA, 2021)
Nano 2.0 (Barnard, Cape Town, 2018), Contemporary African Pop
(a series of pop-up exhibitions, Johannesburg, 2018), Is There Still Life? (Old Town House, Cape Town, 2007), Sounds and the City (Hazard, Johannesburg, 2017), Prints on Paper
(Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees, Outdshoorn, and Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, 2017), Turbine Art Fair (Johannesburg, 2017), 35 Years: Trailblazers (Lizamore & Associates, Johannesburg, 2017), Between Light and Shadow: Rights of Passage (Sulger-Buel Lovell, Cape Town and London, 2016), Suddenly a Dissident (Guns and Rain/Point of Order, Johannesburg, 2016), I OBJEKT (Art It Is, Johannesburg, 2016), Reverie (AGOG, Johannesburg, 2016), Nugget Square (SOMA, Johannesburg, 2016), Turbine Art Fair (Johannesburg, 2015), Black History Month (Lambeth Academy, London, 2015),
Hogan Lovell’s Africa Celebration (London, 2015), and Of(f) Africa
(Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London, 2015).

Artist | Project Manager | META Foundation
cell: +27 (0)72 412-3569
instagram: vivienkohlerart
email: vivien.kohler@gmail.com
studio: vivien.kohler.studio@gmail.com