Excerpts From Martin Arnold essay “Regarding: Reiss’ Portraits”
Vivian Reiss’ portraits are active, vibrating parts of a set of ongoing conversations between Reiss and her subjects; no, let’s make that between Reiss and her friend, between Reiss and her beloved, between Reiss and her fascinating acquaintance.
These paintings are radiation. They flow from Reiss’ interactions, with all of their flux, variability, and shared unstable synergies. They feel as if they are a part of an ongoing history. They feel as if they are full of stories to which I am not privy. I wonder about their relationship, their “relationship” in every sense of that word -the interpersonal, historical, spatial, temporal. I wonder about their relationship, not just between each other, but between them and every possible aspect of the painting, the person of the artist is intimately present. There is great affection in these paintings. The fecundity of their invention is inviting and openly engaging. It is just that this work seems happily unconcerned with elucidating or analyzing its mysteries and potentials. I feel like a welcome eavesdropper to half of this conversation: Reiss asserting and responding, expressed with the inflections, accents, modulations, ebb-and-flow, gestures and postures of a language I do not, at least not literally, understand. But this leaves me free, free and active. I am able to make my own associations, assign, then re-assign, my own significances, form my own reactions and relationships.
How can this be? How can something as static an object as a painting not eventually project a stable apprehension, at least to each individual viewer? How can a painting stay in flux, never looking the same each time one comes to it? I think that this is possible in Reiss’ portraits because of what she relinquishes and because of what she celebrates. Most significantly, these paintings relinquish set hierarchies.
Each painting radiates a very different conversation. And yet, all this does not come off as some master plan evincing the aesthetic strategies of the painter;. These portraits are a locus of human intercourse between all of the people and stuff inside and all of the people and stuff outside the canvas. They spill out into the room, into the temporalities and motions of countless back-and-forths.
What Reiss celebrates is availability and openness and allowance. This work does not give off the aura that there is a “correct” meaning that the viewer has to strive for; there is no right way to look at any of these paintings and “get it.” Clearly, for me, they are not to be “got” – I would hope that they would never relinquish their changeability and their ability to suggest new relationships.
But this is just tangential to a conversation — not only the conversation between the painter and the painted, but also the one between myself and these portraits. All of this is made available, and Reiss allows it all in the most loving way. There is affection in these portraits. And it is not only between the painter and the painted.
Martin Arnold
“Walking through the doors of Vivian Reiss’ downtown Toronto home is like taking a dip into her multilayered imagination. It isn’t a stretch to assume that the mind of this artist is an adventurous place, where anything is possible and where flavourful emotions are the basis for life. Her paintings range from portraits to landscapes to still lives, but they all share the qualities of being remarkably vivid, expressive and heartfelt, expressing a joie-de-vivre evident in each canvas and in every aspect of Reiss’ life. While her love of art came from within herself it was also nurtured by interests in all fields of art. Indeed, as a mature artist, her pan-cultural influences are evident… Reiss’ works have captured the attention of the art world as a whole, inspiring critics and the public alike to experience her unique aesthetic”
Perlita Ettedgui, Lifestyles Magazine
“Vivian Reiss doesn’t just capture a face when she paints a portrait. Her work echoes the soul and culture of her subjects”
Penelope Graham, Metro News
“Vivian has the charm of her paintings and they in turn are pervaded with that somewhat deceptive innocence and vivid presence. What you can see is a stream of consciousness turned visible thanks to a delightful and playful palette of bright strokes…
“However, the impulse light of Vivian’s paintings hides something deeper that has to be discovered by every one of us. Just look at the paintings and take your time. There is more to them than seems at first glance. To discover their secret depth is what I wish you…”
Paul Hassoun, attaché culturel de France
“Vivian Reiss is the epitome of Bon Vivant, a New York expat who celebrates life in Toronto like few others. The painter, known for the mad-cap salons she hosts in her opulent Victorian home, talks about life in the Annex from her 12 foot tall garden to joining the ROM’s royal patron circle”
Zosia Bielski
“Looking at the luscious colours and eye-popping vibrancy of Vivian Reiss’ work, you’d swear she was born with a paintbrush in her hand…
What is perhaps so spellbinding about Reiss’ Satoyama Storehouse portraits is that she paints a whole person, not just their face. The traditional notion of a portrait gets turned -literally -onto its head, as Reiss portrays the entire subject, capturing their awkwardness, shyness, reserve, bravery, whatever the case may be for the person she paints….
Reiss’ use of colour in the portrait is imaginative but never intrusive; her vibrancy and keen understanding of her subject are reflected in smooth, long brush strokes, serene and zen-like.”
Kate Kustanczy, arts writer
“In a highly anxious world, Vivian’s art is an oasis for our souls. It reaches out and touches an inner part of us, which craves for a purer, more truthful existence. Her work is vibrant, yet soothing to what we are all really about. Vivian’s work has taken the baton from the likes of the Fauvists and Impressionists and has gone well beyond to create its own unique and humanistic style, which simply put, makes us feel young again”.
Jack S. Nyman, art collector
“Trained as an artist in New York, Reiss is prepared to break the rules, both as a painter, and a collector/creator. Designing installation or sets in which she plays with scale and normalcy, she aims in all cases to disarm the adult and give permission to play and enjoy a fictitious world.”
Kim Mckenzie Galvez, from Canadian Interiors Magazine
“In the paintings of Vivian Reiss, all the tin drums, dolls, masks, amusement parks…, all of it, is thematically exempt from “gravity”. Her themes allow for the expression of lightness, airiness, and freedom from “weight”…
“Vivian’s paintings are intended for those who, like children, know the joie de vivre… These paintings are not intended for bourgeois tastes, but very simply for all those who know what the joy of life is.”
Peter Simic, art historian
“Known for her vibrant colour palette and kinetic style, Vivian Reiss doesn’t set out to create idealized images of her subjects. Her portraits are all about capturing the joy and positive energy of the sitter”
Joan Harting Barham, contributing editor, FQ magazine
“Vivian Reiss’ creative approach is clear the minute one enters her Victorian mansion. There is an explosion of colour and artworks and objects (always interesting, often eccentric) that she has accumulated over a lifetime, every piece underlying her more is more philosophy. Walking through the halls of her home is akin to visiting a relaxed and messy museum. And of course there is her art, lots of it, adorning every wall. Framed in gold, her paintings are technicolour fantasies, some depicting the natural world, others scenes of busy domestic interiors.”
Tabassum Siddiqui, arts reporter, National Post
“It’s amazing to know how deeply you managed to understand the village people’s minds and their society within the very limited time of two and a half months. It also seems to me that the villagers themselves came to have a new understanding of their own lives through the process of being subjects of portraits and of communicating with you. I imagine that most of the people hadn’t expected to appear in a portrait and that experience must have been very peculiar and, at the same time, exciting. It’s amazing that art has the power to make people think about their own world so differently.
People in rural areas in Japan sometimes face economic hardships, but the most difficult thing for them is the loss of their self confidence- through this experience it seems to me that they regained their sense of self and of community. Thank you so much for helping both Canadian and Japanese people to rediscover the people of Japan. ”
Message to Reiss from Masayuki Suzuki, Director of the Japan Foundation, Toronto in regards to Reiss’ project Satoyama Storehouse
“This exhibition is more than an exhibition, it is a lesson in art and humanity.”
Ervin Fenyves, Professor, University of Texas, about Satoyama Storehouse
“Reiss’ works possess a refreshing sophistication – a sophistication that does not merely rely on the play between text and subtext. Rather, it is a sophistication that grows organically from her fundamental aesthetic; her vocabulary of vibrant brushstrokes and elemental inspiration. A sophistication of intimacy between artist and object, between artist and model, between artist and art.”
French Cultural Attaché, Toronto
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