Janaina Tschäpe

The art of multimedia artist Janaina Tschäpe has always straddled several universes: among others, the natural world, the fantastical, the theatrical, the art historical, and the profoundly psychological. Whether through videos, photographs, performances, watercolors or paintings, she has steadily succeeded in capturing natural phenomena in mid-transition—which is to say her images and objects are devoted to depicting life in various states of becoming.

In mid-March, just a week after participating in New York’s Armory Art Fair, Tschäpe put her highly phenomenological X-ray vision to the test, as she and her young daughter lit out for their country home in rural Bocaina, a lush area full of native flora and fauna. Faced with the overwhelming beauty of the landscape where she chose to quarantine, the artist decided to look inward; in her words, to “turn the idea of the portrait [itself] into a landscape,” or to search for “a new landscape inside of [herself].” In this way her watercolor and pencil on paper works channel an especially salutary artistic vision for our present era: one in which the body is seen as nature and nature is viewed as the body, with interchangeable fortunes and essences.

— CVF, USFCAM

“With the arrival of COVID-19, I made the decision to leave New York with my daughter to isolate in my country-home in the mountains of rural Brazil, where my family is from. I thought that living in proximity to nature would be a more reflective and peaceful way to spend this challenging period. It was a tough decision as we had no idea how long this period would last, and there was the very real possibility of being unable to get back to the states for the indefinite future. As of right now, we are planning to stay for another couple of months.

“When we first arrived, I finally had the solitude to gather my thoughts on the ensuing pandemic. I think I fell on self-portraiture as the best way to digest the situation and its implications for me on a personal level. On the other hand, I wanted to use the self-portraits as a means to understand my relationship to nature, and to reveal the soul of the overwhelming landscape that I find myself surrounded by here in the countryside. Making these self-portraits became my everyday routine, a way that I could express how I was feeling, and how the emotional landscape within me was transforming in relation to the natural one I am living in, within the greater context of the global pandemic.

“In such a difficult and alarming situation, we have to take baby steps and allow ourselves time to cope and understand how our creative processes are being affected. This feeling of numbness grows within you and can easily overwhelm one’s life if you refuse to adjust, little by little, to the current climate. I feel like these small watercolors were my first steps towards continuing my artistic process, connecting my internal world to the external one so as not to get caught up in negative thoughts about the future. At the same time, I frequently find myself thinking about how my practice will be affected, as well as the art world more generally. Right now, we are obviously almost exclusively experiencing art via online platforms, but I can’t help but wonder what it will be like when the world re-opens and we can once again experience art in person.”

— Janaina Tschäpe