New Paintings: Eva Nielsen

Eva Nielsen’s paintings are constructed by a succession of layers of matter and images: landscapes in the background are slightly out of focus and in contradiction with elements in the foreground. The “post-apocalyptical” imagery present in Eva Nielsen’s work holds also a great amount of hope.

It is as if anything is possible, as if a new chance is being given to the humankind, or on the contrary to nature to live in peace without the violent interaction of people. Nobody. In the middle of nowhere.

Snow, earth, dirt. But also swings, football nets, advertising boards. Elements of her paintings are taken from the surrounding scenery, from her backyard to the paradigmatic contrasted landscape of Paris suburbs where she lives.

The scenery is familiar to us: a snowy landscape, an abandoned urban zone, Californian deserted suburbs...

Seen from the train, it appears like a moving image of an amalgam of concrete, nature and void, giving an impression of «déjà vu».

This impression is emphasized by the redundant use of an all-over screen-print that blurs the landscape and alters the viewers perception in a game of black- transparency. The matters are passing through it, then the surface is scraped and the dirt blown away. Despite the figurative, what you are looking at is not obvious. One has to spend the time to properly grasp what is given on the canvas, in order to tune with its layered temporality.

Taken as a fundamental condition of seeing the luring apparatus of vision, Eva Nielsen generates trompe-lʼoeil representations grounded in the everyday experience of image production: the digital condition of the image is her permanent shift between the invisible and the optical illusion. Taking up the in- between spaces generated by the flaws of our vision allows realities where our senses are blurred beyond the comfort zone of our perception.