Biography
Veronica Green b. 1984, New Zealand
Based in Venice, Italy.
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Veronica Green is a contemporary artist known for pioneering the triple scene painting technique, a practice that uses natural light, ultraviolet light, and phosphorescent emission to reveal three distinct visual realities within a single work.
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Of Italian and Polish descent, Green’s work examines identity as layered, fluid, and constructed across personal, cultural, and psychological dimensions. Through the orchestration of light as both material and metaphor, she interrogates what is visible, what is concealed, and what emerges only through altered perception.
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Early Formation
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Green received her BFA (Hons) from Massey University, Wellington, in 2006. Her early practice developed through a series of formative exhibitions, including her first institutional solo exhibition, Drift with Me (2007–2008) at Whirinaki Whare Taonga, New Zealand.
In 2008, she relocated to Venice, where a residency and solo exhibition at Spiazzi Gallery marked the beginning of her international career. Immersed in a city shaped by history, illusion, and layered realities, Green began developing a symbolic visual language rooted in narrative, architecture, and myth.
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These early works established an ongoing inquiry into identity, perception, and layered meaning—forming the foundation for her later exploration of light, transformation, and multi-scenario painting.
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Evolution of Practice
​Between 2009 and 2012, while represented by Movimento Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Green began experimenting with phosphorescent materials. This marked a critical expansion of her practice beyond the painted surface, introducing temporality and perceptual transformation as intrinsic elements of the work.
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In 2015, during a residency at 30 Upstairs Gallery in Wellington, her focus shifted toward light and shadow as metaphors for the psyche. This period established the conceptual foundations for a multi-layered approach to image-making, where meaning emerges through changing conditions of visibility.
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The development of this approach culminated in 2020 during a residency at Château Orquevaux, France, where Green formalised her triple scene painting methodology.
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Each work unfolds across three perceptual states:
Natural light reveals the external persona and constructed identity; ultraviolet light exposes subconscious and psychological layers; and phosphorescent emission, activated in darkness, discloses an inner, more elusive essence.
Through this process, painting becomes a temporal and shifting experience—one that resists fixity and invites the viewer into an evolving act of perception.
Exhibitions & Recognition
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Green has exhibited internationally across Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the United States. Her work has been presented during the 59th and 60th Venice Biennale, and at institutions including Mudac, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Lausanne, and Palazzo degli Prigioni, Venice.
Her work has also been shown in galleries across New York, Hong Kong, Milan, Shanghai, and Lugano, and is held in private and public collections internationally.
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Practice Today​
Green’s paintings challenge fixed perception. By activating light as a structural and conceptual force, she expands the possibilities of contemporary painting into immersive, perceptual environments. Her practice continues to explore identity within shifting cultural, environmental, and psychological contexts.
Artist Statement
My practice centres on the material and symbolic potential of light. Working with natural illumination, ultraviolet exposure and phosphorescent pigments, I construct triple scene paintings that reveal distinct visual realities within a single surface. Each work unfolds across shifting conditions, destabilising fixed perception and inviting the viewer into a temporal encounter with the image.
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Light operates as both medium and metaphor. It determines what is visible, what remains latent, and what emerges only through altered states of attention. Through layered compositions and specialised techniques, I explore the tension between appearance and interiority, between the performed self and the hidden, intuitive, or subconscious dimensions of identity.
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Recurring motifs such as landscape, architectural space, symbolic figures and fragments of narrative function as psychological terrains rather than literal settings. The visible scene often suggests familiarity or coherence, while the ultraviolet and phosphorescent layers introduce rupture, memory and emotional undercurrents. Meaning is not fixed. It shifts according to circumstance, proximity and time.
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The work reflects a broader inquiry into perception in an age defined by multiplicity and flux. Identity is not singular or stable, but layered and contingent. By requiring the viewer to move physically and perceptually between lighting conditions, the paintings become experiential structures, spaces in which transformation is enacted rather than merely depicted.
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Ultimately, I am interested in creating works that operate beyond the immediate image, paintings that reveal themselves gradually, reward sustained attention and leave a resonant, enduring imprint.
Studio
Practice
This work emerges through a sustained engagement with material, light and surface. The studio is where experimentation, repetition and refinement shape each painting’s layered structure and perceptual shifts.