Janaina Tschäpe

Lower East Side Printshop published 70 unique screenprint monoprints by Janaina Tschäpe during her Publishing Residency Program in 2014. In this monumental series of 70 unique prints, Tschäpe explores unique image-making techniques that allow fluid mark-making and organic patterns to emerge. The vibrant color selection creates a deep visceral experience and relies heavily on nature itself, a predominant influence for much of Tschäpe's work.

In the monistic system of the philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, Nature and God are intertwined within one entity. Nature itself assumes an active, pro- ductive role as Natura Naturans (literally from Latin: Nature naturing), an element that is inherently infinite and necessary. Humans are an insepara- ble part of this union and find their place and true happiness within a Nature that is utterly alive.

Nature plays a pivotal role and appears to be more than alive in Janaina Tschäpe’s creative universe encompassing sculpture, video, photography, painting, and drawing. A German/Brazilian raised and educated in Europe, Tschäpe moved to Brazil in the mid-90’s and began absorbing the vibrant and magical stimulus offered by that country’s “miraculous” nature. Leaving her sculptural interests temporarily behind, she started focusing on photo- graphic and performative enactments of the feminine body—the artist her- self in disguise—harmonically inserted into the landscape. Performance in the style of Maya Deren and Bas Jan Adler particularly influenced Tschäpe who, in conversation with curator Rachel Thomas, explained “I like the idea of photographing and filming the self in a way that permits an escape from the autobiographical and a move into fiction.”

Thus, for the photographic series Melantropics (2005) and Botanist’s Dream (2006), she emphasized the feral aspects of nature and the metamorphic role of the human body in dialogue with it, using vivid expressionist colors in fairy tale scenery. Such saturated chromatic choices also depicted luscious, albeit dangerous, anthropomorphic vegetation in Botanica (2004-5), a series infused with a seductive, sensual quality.

Most of the previously discussed themes infiltrate Tschäpe’s production quite naturally, like disparate interwoven threads in a rich tapestry. In her paintings and drawings, organic shapes intersperse dynamically on a fluid background that resembles a microcosm greatly magnified, while loose brushstrokes and casually dripped paint seem to expose the artist’s corpo- ral presence “performing” right in front of the surface. Indeed, the composi- tion is so immediate and intuitive that it evokes a surreal abstracted reality suspended in time.

Drawing from the two-dimensional works, Tschäpe’s new monoprints are conceived using three distinct image-making methods: hand drawing, ink/color drippings and, first and foremost, paper cutouts, which are made into screens and printed in various colors among more than 80 unique works. The artist is fascinated by the accidental drippings that routinely occur in her pictorial practice, but in this seminal printing project she har- nessed them, turning these random markings into repetitive patterns, a so- lution that is not usually available to her. As a consequence, all the screenprints are to some extent compositionally related and suggest a vi- sual puzzle that triggers the viewer’s imagination in forging a fragmented personal narrative. In Spilling Memory 1 and Spilling Memory 4, elaborate hand drawings hint at an undertone of symbolic primitive shapes and marks, surfaced from a dreamy state of mind. Abstracted animal faces, almost car- toonish, emerge through color fields disclosing a playful and joyous senti- ment that neutralizes their feral nature by morphing them into tamed, impotent teddy bears.

In Spilling Memory 2, a striking Rorschach symmetry characterizes the image of unapologetic tropical beauty doused in a purple and turquoise aquatic background that leads to forest green and, finally, to a central floral pink butterfly. Such symbolic reference to the element of water is a recur- ring theme in these prints, as well as in the artist’s video experimentations, via the fluid essence in the form of drippings and shades of blue. A self-ref- erential whimsical nod perhaps to the artist’s connection to nature’s life force, as her first name “Janaina” means “queen of the ocean” in the Afro- Brazilian Candomblé language.

Excerpt from Editions '14 by Micaela Giovannotti