text by Cathrin Mayer
November 21 - December 21, 2019
Sans titre
33 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin
75010 Paris, France
Photography by Aurélien Mole
Withdrawn
from any traces of contemporary life, Tanja Nis-Hansen’s paintings present a
scenery that reveals the painter’s sensibility towards what could be described
as an unconventional synthesis of historical styles.
The
artist holds a tremendous fascination for theatre and stage design, which in
the paintings does not only surface through the inner logic of space on the
canvas, but also through an all over “theatrical” mode of representation.
Nis-Hansen’s works not only depict metaphorical narratives that portray
interior conditions, but also demonstrate contemporary strategies in painting.
Looking
at the elongated bodies, refined draperies and the psychedelic use of colors
and patterns, the characters here seem to be “undead”. Like vampiric creatures,
they carry the memory of passed times and styles. While resembling gothic
portal figures tripping in a psychedelic dream they illustrate the quality of
painting, bringing forth the most idiosyncratic artistic practices. Even though
some of the figures possess four arms and auratic, flashy eyes their emotional
expressions seem to be redirected from their own faces and bodies and straight
into the eyes of the viewer, or to the compositional elements surrounding them.
The characters themselves seem to be carried by a static tranquility, which at
times evoke an uncanny feeling. Their latent rigidity is enhanced by their
placement within the architectural settings and the continuous use of flat
surfaces. One encounters figures pinched between folded surfaces and
backgrounds, full of elegance and control. It seems that they are almost in
need of holding their breaths and posture to retain the inner logic of the
claustrophobic composition.
It
is this fragile, transitory moment between inhaling and exhaling that unlocks
the enigma of time and place depicted in the works. Similarly to the
surrealists or artists of the new objectivism movement, Tanja Nis- Hansen
creates dreamlike sequences which in the distortion of reality actually manage
to conjure what in fact makes us hold our breath - a deep interior, that might
hold all the feelings and things repressed and packed away.
Text
by Cathrin Mayer
Tanja
Nis-Hansen (b. 1988, DK) lives and works in Berlin. She studied in Copenhagen
and Vienna before achieving both her BFA (2016) and MFA (2018) at the Academy
of Fine Arts, Hamburg under the supervision of professor Jutta Koether. She has
had solo exhibitions at Sydhavn Station, Copenhagen (2019), at Come Over chez
Malik’s, Hamburg (2017) and at the Golden Pudel Club, Hamburg (2015). Recent group exhibitions
include SORT, Vienna (2019), Crum Heaven, Stockholm (2019), Rumpelstiltskin,
New York (2018), Kunsthaus Hamburg (2018), Galleria Federico Vavassori, Milan
(2018), Munchener Kammerspiele, Munich (2018), the Institut Kunst, Basel (2018)
and Halle fur Kunst, Luneburg (2017). She was awarded a grant by the Danish Art
Council in 2019, after being nominated for the Hamburger Arbeitsstipendium, the
Hiscox Kunstpreis and the Schues Nachwuchsforrderung all in 2018.