Ernst Yohji Jaeger, Lunatique
25.03.2022
— 07.05.2022
— 07.05.2022
Galerie Crevecoeur
9 rue des Cascades & 5 rue de Beaune, Paris
9 rue des Cascades & 5 rue de Beaune, Paris
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Intentionally
non-historic, creating a subtle balance between abstraction and
figuration, Ernst Yohji Jaeger’s painting aims at freeing itself
from the borders of identity, of time and social constructs. As
Reilly Davidson wrote about his work: ‘The world he occupies is
free of attachments and dialogues with artists across time and
space’.
His
sources are as varied as the plurality of images that make up our
modern visual universe: films, mangas, video games, classic
paintings, memes… He takes a particular interest in the processes
of circulation, appropriation and pollinisation of pictorial
representations as, for example, how the work of Marie Laurencin (who
has a museum in Japan containing over 600 pieces) has greatly
influenced the Shojo manga genre (manga with a female orientation).
Which, in turn, has been a major influence on many contemporary
painters. Having grown up with the Internet, Ernst Yohji Jaeger has
forged his own history of art, which means being able to grant value
to previously ignored postures, while abolishing any aesthetic
hierarchal dogma.
sources are as varied as the plurality of images that make up our
modern visual universe: films, mangas, video games, classic
paintings, memes… He takes a particular interest in the processes
of circulation, appropriation and pollinisation of pictorial
representations as, for example, how the work of Marie Laurencin (who
has a museum in Japan containing over 600 pieces) has greatly
influenced the Shojo manga genre (manga with a female orientation).
Which, in turn, has been a major influence on many contemporary
painters. Having grown up with the Internet, Ernst Yohji Jaeger has
forged his own history of art, which means being able to grant value
to previously ignored postures, while abolishing any aesthetic
hierarchal dogma.
Each
painting starts with a long abstract préparation; this consists in
covering the surface with a mixture of colours that produce a rusty
orange. Then, there begins a variation in the compositions, which are
superimposed, bringing together a pell-mell of characters,
architectural sections and objects coming from still lifes. Each
version bears the ghost of the previous scene, but they all retain a
specific object, a posture, or a precise form, coming directly from
what the painter can observe around him, in the sky, in the town, or
in his catalogues. These are conceived borrowings, ‘pictorial
ready-mades’: a radiator by Bonnard, a heart drawn with a spray can
on the door of a building in Vienne, a blue pattern with green spots
by Felice Casorati, a composition of concentric clouds seen from his
studio’s glass roof. During this process of covering, decisions are
born and become fixed. There are appearances and disappearances.
Without any premeditation. Each painting is thus a sum of different
states, to be deciphered both in the past and the future, giving the
spectator an uncanny sense of déjà-vu.
This
method (which isn’t really one) leads to a mysterious iconography,
in which the objects seem suspended rather than anchored, and where
the characters, often seen side on, are in transit. We do not know
where they are, where they are going, or even who they are. They are
androgynous, ageless characters moving through ’the ambiguous world
of the indeterminate’ (as Redon put it).
painting starts with a long abstract préparation; this consists in
covering the surface with a mixture of colours that produce a rusty
orange. Then, there begins a variation in the compositions, which are
superimposed, bringing together a pell-mell of characters,
architectural sections and objects coming from still lifes. Each
version bears the ghost of the previous scene, but they all retain a
specific object, a posture, or a precise form, coming directly from
what the painter can observe around him, in the sky, in the town, or
in his catalogues. These are conceived borrowings, ‘pictorial
ready-mades’: a radiator by Bonnard, a heart drawn with a spray can
on the door of a building in Vienne, a blue pattern with green spots
by Felice Casorati, a composition of concentric clouds seen from his
studio’s glass roof. During this process of covering, decisions are
born and become fixed. There are appearances and disappearances.
Without any premeditation. Each painting is thus a sum of different
states, to be deciphered both in the past and the future, giving the
spectator an uncanny sense of déjà-vu.
This
method (which isn’t really one) leads to a mysterious iconography,
in which the objects seem suspended rather than anchored, and where
the characters, often seen side on, are in transit. We do not know
where they are, where they are going, or even who they are. They are
androgynous, ageless characters moving through ’the ambiguous world
of the indeterminate’ (as Redon put it).
If
the artist has also looked at Klimt and the Nabis, he has not kept
the hieratic look of their characters. Here the lines are contorted
so as to adjust to the suppleness of the bodies, with an inspiration
that looks more towards manga. These bodies are there, between
diverse passageways – all opening out into the distance -, and
familiar objects, some of which play on a subtle game of mirrors,
scattering our gazes into a play of infinite correspondances. They
are rocked by a light but persistent wind, which we seem to see in
his compositions. On taking a closer look, luminous traces, like
whirls, rise up around the characters. They are invisible presences,
diaphanous chrysalides that bring to life the impression of a
hypnotic world, perhaps on the verge of tipping into the
supernatural. The unrealistic shades – rust, ochre, brown, emerald,
cobalt – which are always slightly veiled, accentuate the
timelessness of the scenes which seem to slip away from any form of
history. They are colours that could belong to a world that is
backlit compared to ours. And this is perhaps the magnetic strength
which is so hard to describe and that makes for the singularity of
this painting: that strange familiarity in which we are both here and
elsewhere, in a parallel world, where shadows are reflected and
mingled.
the artist has also looked at Klimt and the Nabis, he has not kept
the hieratic look of their characters. Here the lines are contorted
so as to adjust to the suppleness of the bodies, with an inspiration
that looks more towards manga. These bodies are there, between
diverse passageways – all opening out into the distance -, and
familiar objects, some of which play on a subtle game of mirrors,
scattering our gazes into a play of infinite correspondances. They
are rocked by a light but persistent wind, which we seem to see in
his compositions. On taking a closer look, luminous traces, like
whirls, rise up around the characters. They are invisible presences,
diaphanous chrysalides that bring to life the impression of a
hypnotic world, perhaps on the verge of tipping into the
supernatural. The unrealistic shades – rust, ochre, brown, emerald,
cobalt – which are always slightly veiled, accentuate the
timelessness of the scenes which seem to slip away from any form of
history. They are colours that could belong to a world that is
backlit compared to ours. And this is perhaps the magnetic strength
which is so hard to describe and that makes for the singularity of
this painting: that strange familiarity in which we are both here and
elsewhere, in a parallel world, where shadows are reflected and
mingled.