Oda Jaune
Miss Understand
For her first solo exhibition in the United States, the rare and uncanny Oda Jaune unveils a challenging exhibition in New York. “Miss Understand” offers a series of nearly 25 new oil paintings and dozens of watercolors, on a singular perception of the woman in our time.
“I was always moved by all that cannot be told by words, to me words ends when painting begins… art goes further”
Oda Jaune, 2024
Oda Jaune, Bulgarian in origin and trained in Germany, has for nearly 15 years been among the most intriguing figures on the European art scene with a body of work freed from any pictorial convention. Poetic, sensual, and expansive, her painting ignites conversation and explores, without inhibition, the depth of femininity today.
At the core of this new exhibition is a spectacular and large canvas. The work captivates and challenges. A baby is cradled in a nurturing embrace within softly curvaceous, winged forms, floating upon a fleshy landscape. The audience is reminded that all life emerges through the womb as a unique being. A single eye, nestled in the heart of a fetal composition, secretes tender tears – an intimate window into the sacrifices made upon becoming a mother. Just as memories of this rite of passage are non-linear, little by little, this intriguing enigma unfolds an ode to motherhood that is as poignant as it is astonishing.
The exhibition then unfolds in a constellation of medium and small format watercolors. On the first floor of the gallery, the visitor is introduced to the feminine in its full complexity. Jaune holds up a distorted mirror, presenting unexplored potentials of how the feminine is perceived – historically and today.
Eve portrayed as an innocent child, holding an apple whilst perched on an anatomical tree with softly bowing branches; Barbie who, far from being unchanging in her expression, posture and age, represents the metamorphosis of the female as she cycles through the archetypes (from Maiden to Crone), her skin creasing into wrinkles as our eyes descend the canvas; and the body of a woman in the prime of life topped with a primate head, a discreet homage to the Guerrilla Girls. The theme of morphing identities continues in The It Girl (part-woman part-iPhone), suggesting that our phones become an artificial extension of ourselves, both anatomically and metaphorically. The cold, blue light surrounding her exposes the extroversion on social media that often masks our insecurities. Another woman squats powerfully, enduring the flames that attempt to devour her.
Behind a technique that appears singular and complex, these hybrid bodies in states of metamorphosis raise questions. The exhibition opens a dialogue around the polarities that divide society today, such as good and evil, young and old, authentic and fake, innocent and guilty, light and shadow, tame and “Man Eater”.
M like Mother
Downstairs, the visitor is immersed in the minimalist, womb-like realm of “Miss Understand”. Her chair, TV, bed, fridge and rug are all soft. Tiny paintings of watchful eyes are stationed around her bed, creating windows to souls she perhaps knew in a past lifetime, or wishes she could know in another.
The artist explains: “ I was always moved by all that cannot be told by words, for me when words end painting begins…art goes further. We don’t need to understand everything, but we shouldn’t stop feeling, as it’s a way of deepening our understanding. I feel it’s time we move away from all the classifications, preconceptions and stigma that women are given. I feel it’s time we expand our understanding… ”.
The artist
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1979, Oda Jaune studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf before developing an interdisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture and installation. She lives and works between London, Paris and Bulgaria.
Oda Jaune’s work is driven by a sustained inquiry into the instability of reality and the transformative potential of form. Rather than representing the visible world, she constructs new modes of existence in which the distinctions between body and object, organic and artificial, attraction and disquiet cease to remain fixed. Her works propose an expanded anatomy of life, where objects acquire corporeality, bodies dissolve into landscapes, and unfamiliar organisms emerge with an uncanny sense of intimacy.
While painting remains central to her practice, sculpture has become an increasingly significant field of investigation. Working with materials including bronze, ceramic and blown glass, Jaune explores the physical and metaphysical capacities of matter itself.
Without belonging to any single movement or tradition, Oda Jaune has developed a singular visual language in which beauty and estrangement coexist, and where imagination functions not as an escape from reality but as a means of generating new realities.
