‘‘Botanical @ Fantastical II’’, Janette Cervin
(Gallery Thirty Three, Wanaka)
WALKING amidst Janette Cervin’s work is like opening a storybook and stepping into its pages. Each large aluminium canvas acts as a window, a portal into an immersive, jeweltoned world, rich with birdlife and lush flowers. The level of intricate detail is impressive, engrossing the viewer as they are drawn closer to look, examine and wonder. Cervin paints on multiple layers of poured resin, literally encasing every gorgeous bird and petal as if they were fossils preserved in amber, and the result is an incredible threedimensional depth. Every scene appears to extend far back beyond the flat surface of the picture plane. In areas, the paint shimmers with a reflective lustre, as if the works are lit from within, as if you could push aside the branches and follow a path towards the glimpses of serene water and rushing waterfalls, and find the source of the glow.
The tropical atmosphere of works such as The Visitor is open and warm, viscerally attractive, but the standouts in an extremely strong collection are the glorious, darkertoned Hustle for the
Pretty Things and Wonderlust.
Brightly coloured birds and flowers radiate against a background that flickers into complex shadows, shapes painted on the first layers of resin receding into an elusive mistiness behind those in the foreground. Their composition has the intricacy of a medieval tapestry, and a comparable beauty.