Wiels | EN

The exhibition, set on WIELS’ second floor, is crossed diagonally by ‘Oilopa Allee’, a vanishing point named after Europa Allee, an actual boulevard making the connection between the European quarters in Brussels and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the two cities between which the artist divides her time. It articulates several groups of older and recent paintings – some of which have been specially produced for the occasion –, and casts various characters and iconographies which the artist has investigated over the last decade, such as the morecorn (an inflated version of the unicorn), spray paint cans and paint brushes, female sockets, or new variations on the energising coffee economy as a multifocal symptom of extraction, dependence, productivity and leisure.

By assuming a heterogeneity of textures, techniques and pictorial heritages, Euler pursues her approach of vitalist expressive figuration as a device giving shape to fantasied worlds. Yet, as in Oilopa, these fantasies are less engaging in an escapist reflex from the real as opening perspectives on its perverted process.

Over two decades, German artist Jana Euler (b. 1982, Friedberg) has produced a diverse though consistent body of work that diagrams painting’s social, material, and historical bases. This monographic exhibition at WIELS during summer 2024 is an invitation to the artist to renew their relationship, following Euler’s earlier involvement in various capacities such as the residency programme in 2012, the thematic exhibition Residue in 2013, or her specific contribution for The Absent Museum in 2017.