Jade Fenu

Lives and works in Saint-Denis, France

Artist statement

My paintings begin in landscapes that have marked me physically: the volcanic interior of Hawaii, the lunar expanse of Death Valley, and the mineral, human mix of Sardinia, where I come from. These are places where time folds onto itself, where different layers of history and belief meet in the same ground. Over the past year, my work has moved away from narrative and figuration toward something more direct. I am increasingly wary of pareidolia, the reflex that pushes a viewer to recognize a human or animal shape in what they see, and I want my paintings to resist that reflex. I work in acrylic, directly on the floor, building the surface with heavy impasto so that the painting asserts its physical presence in front of the viewer. I am trying to give the viewer something felt rather than something read: a sensation rather than a story, a raw and immediate encounter rather than an image to decode.

Artwork