LOOKING FOR THE IN-BETWEEN
Berlin, September 2022
Absorbed by the colors and shapes, one can easily stay in front of ANETA KAJZER's paintings for hours on end. The strength of her works lies in the freedom of interpretation they offer, allowing us to lose ourselves in an imaginary world where figures and bodies intermingle in strange and poetic landscapes. Living and working in Berlin, the artist likes her painting to be ‘in-between’, without dictating any rules of composition and perception. Together, we discussed what her work is made of, and how these images emerge and surprise both the audiences and herself.
Left Top Loewe
Right Full look A Better Mistake
Your work seems to raise several tensions. Between the figurative and the abstract, the beautiful and the ugly, the serious and the absurd. Where and how do you situate your work?
Between all these opposites. I don’t define my paintings as purely figurative or purely abstract, and I personally don’t think I have to, or that it matters much. I find joy in the shapes I’m creating while painting, the figures that come to life, as well as in interesting color surfaces. It’s about color, composition and creating a good image, rather than sticking to certain rules or ideas.
The figures come naturally to me, they also allow me to purvey emotions or a certain kind of humor. That said, it’s important for me to leave a lot up to the viewer. Whether they find it ugly or pretty, funny or melancholic, or more abstract than figurative depends on them. I feel comfortable in the in-between.
How do colors and movement lead your painting research? Do you leave space for randomness?
Colors and movements are the essential elements that create my work. The paint, gestures and colors lead me to find the figures. A long smooth brush stroke can become a hair strand, an accidental drop of paint an eye, or a bright orange in the background a sunset. I would say randomness and intentional decisions form the images equally. A mistake or the paint not doing what you expect it to can lead you to new interesting image solutions.
Full look A Better Mistake
How do you compose your paintings? What is the process between the first draft and the final picture?
Actually, there are no drafts at all. I never do sketches before I start a painting and I don’t have a preconceived idea of what the image will be in the end either. It all happens directly on the canvas. Sometimes I might have a color combination in mind but usually, it changes quickly anyway while painting. I work on the floor so that I can work with quite runny oil paint and from all sides of the canvas. When I start, I don’t even know which side of the canvas will be up and which will be down in the final image. At some point, there is usually a figure appearing that makes this decision. Sometimes I completely overpaint works and turn them around, so the direction can change. The work is finished for me when I consider it to be coherent and there is nothing more I can do to improve it. It’s more a feeling than a rational decision.
The figures in your works often appear to be at the crossroads of human and animal, and sometimes monstrous. Where do these characters come from and what do they refer to?
They can come from everything I’ve ever seen. There are no direct references to certain characters, so you won’t find any creatures you already know, but they might have a familiar ring to them as they draw from the language of comics and animation. Already as a small child, I was drawing a lot, especially characters from certain cartoons I liked, and then, later on, I was into Japanese mangas and computer games. I have also always loved animals and drawn them. So, again, there is a lot in the mix.
Left Full look Loewe
Right Pink suit Valentino Top Our Legacy
I remember the day I saw one of your paintings at the Semiose Gallery in Paris - it felt like shapes and colors were spilling out of the canvas. How do you question the limits of painting? Of the medium? Of representation?
I think I move around happily within the limitations of my medium. The always rectangular canvas can be seen as a bit restricting at first, but I think for me that’s necessary, as I have no other limitations in the intuitive process otherwise. But you should never say never, so I don’t know if one day the paint is going to leave the canvas. I see my artistic approach as in constant development: I don’t know where exactly it will take me and that is a very good thing.
We can feel a lot of freedom in the way that you paint. Do you feel free when you create? What do these paintings free us from?
Yes, I would say I feel free when I paint, but I also struggle a lot. It’s a process that comes with both pleasure and frustration, but I think it only works this way. I wouldn’t say that paintings free us from anything; that would be somewhat presumptuous to claim. What the viewers take from the pictures is up to them. What I would hope for, is that the images are touching them in some way and inspire them to think.
Right Full look Valentino
Left Full look Valentino
Interview by Hanna Pallot
Photography by Letizia Guel
Fashion by Fabiana Vardaro
Hair and Make-Up by Anri Omori
Photographer’s assistant Agnes Virag