04/08/2025
“Eliot and Larkin resonate in different ways, and there are many others who are fundamental to my feeling for art. My reading of John Clare’s Nest poems is an example of the above. Reading Clare, I almost identify with the boy who, having a sense (carefully developed by him during the few years of his boyhood) that a bird’s nest is nearby, he finds his way through an almost impenetrable thicket to find it. Once there, he is very moved by what he finds despite knowing what to expect. His description is tender and respectful of his subject, his writing is full of wonder and curiosity. It is very precise about what he sees, but also about the search. Even so, as readers, we know that his is not just about the bird nesting. What he describes is how it feels to make a painting. At the heart of it is the search for and expression of something precious and fragile, guarded and hard to find. But if approached in the same speculative way, a form accrues which becomes whole, complete and with its own sort of strength.”
“My Nest was painted outside in winter looking towards the boundary of our home which was made up of a tangled mass of thorny stems above the garden wall. This perhaps, is the most obvious link to poetry in this group of work, but the insights, held within many other poems by a range of authors, resonate as I work. They set a standard – a very high one!”
Excerpted from Zadie Loft's interview for The London Magazine with Charlotte Verity when discussing how poetry influences Verity’s creative process.
Artwork:
Charlotte Verity
My Nest, 2016-17
Oil on canvas
34 7/8 x 43 1/4 in, 88.5 x 110 cm
Courtesy Albertz Benda, New York
