Michael Janssen Berlin is pleased to announce its second solo exhibition with Belgian artist Jana Cordenier. The surface of the water shimmers: each ripple becomes a miniature lens, bending and dispersing light in different directions. Colors shift from deep blues and greens to turquoise and aquamarine, then to light yellow and crimson red. Particles of salty water saturate the moist air, turning into pearls interwoven in the abstract seascapes of Jana Cordenier’s embroidery paintings. 'Tides,' the second solo show of the Belgian artist at Michael Janssen, delves into the textural qualities of movement so vividly present in nature. The desire to capture the dynamic essence of her surroundings contributes to Jana Cordenier's passion for working en plein air. Artmaking sessions in the open air resemble a symbolic ritual of becoming one with the landscape. 'It's not like 'me and nature.' It feels more like 'the rock is me, the sea is me, the plant is — I’m the plant,' explains Cordenier. The artist refers to her paintings as 'atmospheres': they represent experiences of the body and are aimed at triggering different senses. In her process, nature serves not only as inspiration but as a co-creator. The concept behind 'Tides' originated on a journey to Greece, during which the artist worked on an expansive drawing using a 10-meter roll of paper she brought with her. Placing it directly on the bare ground, she allowed it to absorb the earth's uneven texture, and be shaped by plants, branches, rocks, and other natural marks that would infuse the drawing with a living, dynamic character. The idea is not to sketch the landscape but to capture the essence of it through its material qualities. To convey the richness of color in her surroundings, Cordenier utilized watercolors, sometimes painting with a branch. For one drawing, she experimented with seawater: as the paper dried, the salt crystals added an extra-dimensional depth to its texture. This large-scale field work became the base for the pieces presented in the exhibition. While Cordenier highly values the process of spontaneous collaboration with nature, the transition from drawing to painting unfolds in the studio, carefully overseen by the artist. In this space, she engages in the process of conceptual transformation of the landscape, opting for the medium of embroidery on canvas. Cordenier’s interest in embroidery was sparked by the search for an alternative to oil paint that could make her paintings lighter in both mass and materiality. To transform the patterns from her drawings, the artist employs transparent cotton, turning sporadic lines into subtle stitches. Hand-dyed silk imparts a sense of translucence to the works, metamorphosing the landscape into an endless field replete with visual possibilities. In her paintings, the Belgian artist experiments with scales and superimpositions, conceptually translating the imprints left by nature in her drawings into the delicate and sophisticated language of embroidery. Her captivating thread paintings vividly pulsate on the canvas, offering the viewer a unique tactile experience. A tapestry of textures creates a sense of movement and depth, with tangible stitches simulating the dynamic nature of the landscape. Jana Cordenier’s 'Tides' captures a moment in movement. Rhythmic and intuitive, her paintings ebb and flow, evoking the sensation of smooth pebbles gently rolling from the shore into the deep sea that shimmers under the afternoon sun. Text by Karina Abdusalamova

For inquiries, please contact: info@michaeljanssen.gallery, +49 30 259 272 50

For the second installment of its online exhibition series, Galerie Michael Janssen will present a solo exhibition by artist Jana Cordenier titled “Watercolours.” This exhibition will be the artist’s second showing with the gallery, who debuted last year with her solo exhibition “Paradise.” Eponymously, “Watercolours” presents a selection of four watercolors on paper, which will be on view for the first time. The works were painted over the course of a year from 2019 to 2020. Cordenier’s large scale watercolors contain interpretations of the artist’s surroundings: landscapes and nature of the South of France and Belgium, whose colors and impressions the artist records en plein air. The paintings bear traces of the artist’s investigations, collections of leaves, flowers, branches, and stones gleaned from ambulatory promenades. The artist creates these drawings in-situ by spreading blank sheets of paper directly on the ground, allowing the elements to percolate on the sheet. Amidst nature and in isolated repose, Cordenier precisely and immediately makes her mark: one that is both fluid and delicate, but also bold. On the act of drawing, the artist writes that “it is an attempt to approach a pure moment, which is ever-changing.” Similarly, the works on view capture this task of pining the vastness of nature down to the singular, its essence. Cordenier cites Cy Twombly and James Ensor as influences, hinting towards where she gets her prowess for gesture and movement that “starts with the feet and flows into the hands.” Likewise, Cordenier’s paintings hint towards an inner world, one that is activated by sensing the chaos of the outside through line, color, and the tear of the paper. “Watercolours” will open on Friday February 19th and be on view online at the gallery’s website until March 27th. A walk-through video will guide the viewer through the exhibition, granting access to the four new works. Text: Vanessa Gravenor

For the final exhibition of the year, Galerie Michael Janssen is pleased to open its doors unto “Paradise”, an exhibition by the Belgian artist Jana Cordenier. “Paradise” marks the artist’s solo debut with the gallery, and it features a collection of works that present her lively, intimate research into painting. In “Paradise” Cordenier takes a different approach to the tradition of plein air painting: strolling through the landscape surrounding Arles, she places blank sheets on the grass that is scattered with branches, flowers, leaves, rocks and the seasonal discardings of nature. Instead of sketching or cataloguing the landscape, however, as a landscape painter in strictu sensu would do, trying to represent what he sees, Cordenier traces and collects delicate impressions of colour and light. Those impressions she renders in her studio on a layered skin of transparent cotton or silk by means of different yarns. Though in their fragile suggestiveness these works might hint at a naturalistic interest in the botanical world around Arles, Cordenier is fully aware that her works, sparsely populated with embroidered graffiti-like gestures and tresses of pure colour, are by no means mere floral representations. Rather, she says, "these works stem from an attempt to make paintings lighter, or less heavy on matter. Before, I considered oil paint too explicit and too meaningful. Here, in nature, to create is to perform a natural act—an act as natural as breathing." Citing Cy Twombly and James Ensor as major forces who helped her set out on a conquest of what could become some kind of paradise, Cordenier is adamant that her concerns take root in a broader discourse on painting, to which she contributes with vibrant, almost primitive gestures. “The struggle here though,” she notes, “is not about the medium, but in the painting itself.” The embroidery should not be considered as a substitute for the saturated image-making act of painting, but as its extension. Thus the yarn records both the collection of light and colours Cordenier picked up on her walks around Arles, and her desire to heighten the material and spatial sensitivities of painting as an intuitive act belying conventional processes. In line with Twombly's buoyant sense of painterly freedom and Ensor's distinct use of halcyon pigments, Cordenier broadens the scope of the traditional brush stroke. Her work exudes a committed timelessness. Piercing the layers of the work's cloth as if it were a skin, each stitch of the needle describes a passage through time, inviting viewers to take a stroll into an experience, rather than into the graphic depiction of a landscape. Just so, the long panorama, stretched on-site due to its size, invites viewers to walk its length and to take the time and space necessary to enjoy its grand scale. “Paradise” is on view from the 7th of December, through the new year, and until the 15th of February 2020. We invite you to enjoy Cordenier’s exhibition, with all of its bursting colours, in anticipation of spring.