The limited use of colours, the small dimensions and the often unfinished paintings point to – or exemplify – the artistic subject, which focusses in on the vulnerability of our human condition, in all of its superficiality and volatility.  It may be that we are looking at a modern version of the vanitas paintings, which are stripped bare from their traditional components and are presented in their purest form.  This would be in the form of the human body, which can only reside in this present world for the duration of a blink of the eye before it will vaporize in the cosmic emptiness.  Are we reminded by Viviane’s paintings of the finiteness of our temporal passage on this earth and to which we will return as dust?

Although the dramatic aspect of the artist’s work is not intentional, the viewer might be left with an uneasy feeling of remoteness and suffering.  Viviane’s way of painting is rough in terms of tone, touch and in contrast as it opposes light and darkness.  On the one hand, she limits herself to playing with luminosity and obscurity in the figures without telling a specific story.  She leaves it up to the ingenuity of the viewer to form their own idea.  On the other hand, the images are brought to the essence of their constitutive elements.  Therefore the works may be seen as a celebration of fragility and modesty.  At the same time, the artist unleashes a powerful inner force.