Robert Scriven
Northern Club Ficus
Oil on Board
1540 x 925 mm
$8,500
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Some buildings gently hold a lifetime of memories.
For painter, Robert Scriven, The Northern Club is one of them. First encountered as a teenager during school holidays spent working nearby, it became a place he would return to often, pausing to take in the building’s façade wrapped in ficus and the tactile sense of history it carries.
Over the years, photographs were taken across seasons, capturing the shifting character of the iconic structure and its botanical veil. From the starkness of winter to the first promise of spring, the fullness of summer and the gentle wane into autumn, the building became a kind of living study; a reflection on time, change, and continuity.
This painting brings those moments together. Referencing the myriad of photographs Scriven had taken, it weaves different stages of the ficus’ colourful cycle into a single composition, created in oil on board. Fresh, lush greens sit alongside leaves in their final autumnal transition, while the underlying lattice of branches remains visible, grounding the composition. Scriven works in oil on board, cutting and shaping the edges of his surfaces to match the contours of his subject. Here, each leaf and underlying branch is rendered and formed in astonishing detail.
Titled after the building, ‘Northern Club Ficus’ is composed in vertical bias, echoing how we might naturally encounter such architecture. Standing close, looking up, taking it all in.
The painting offers a subtle meditation on cycles, memory, and, as the artist describes it, “a certain kind of magic.”
Artist Bio
Robert Scriven paints large scale single flowers or leaves, exquisitely rendered in fine oil on board. They are unique in that the edges of the works are cut to the shape of the bloom, which plays on the realism of his approach. These are amplified to many times life-size, leaving the artist scope for exploration of his subject in exquisite botanical detail and subtle nuances of vibrant colour. The keen attention to light and texture further captures the delicate translucent qualities of his beautiful subjects.