For the last four decades I have been concerned with producing unconventional modernist landscape paintings which conceptualise my emotional connection to the land.
Neville Pilven 2007
Born in 1939, Neville Pilven studied at the National Gallery Art School and the George Bell School (drawing). During the 60’s and early 70’s,Neville travelled to England, Spain and, later, Hydra in Greece, where he lived, painted and continued his art studies. He then moved to London to study Printmaking at the Morley College in 72 and returned to finally settle in Melbourne in 1973.
Throughout his career as an artist, Neville has held over 14 major solo exhibitions with several leading Melbourne and international galleries.
Like all contemporary modernists, Neville has engaged in the challenge to establish a succinct Australian iconography and has been concerned with producing unconventional modernist landscapes for about four decades.
Neville Pilven’s paintings depend on the conceptualisation of his emotional connection to the land. The bleak and impersonal nature of his landscapes negate human presence yet reminds us of distant human intervention. His large paintings emphasise the dynamism of changing topography and the harshness of the forces which sculpted its forms.
Neville Pilven has established himself as an authority of anti-romantic landscape painting, denying the validity of folk myths and avoiding nostalgic reference. His selectivity and use of brooding colour sets him apart from his contemporaries and lends his work the stamp of authenticity.
