Janaina Tschäpe’s fantastical scenes dissolve boundaries, seamlessly intertwining in an ever-flowing continuum of evolution and transformation in a grand opera that delves into themes of change, gender, and the construction of myth and history. The universe created by artist Tschäpe beckons one into a parallel world of ambiguous scale—indeterminate in both time and space. Join us for a special talk with the artist as she discusses her collaboration with the mermaids from nearby Weeki Wachee, which resulted in Tschäpe’s video piece Blood, Sea, one of two works currently on view in The Nature of Art, and what is inspiring her work today.

Janaina Tschäpe is a German-Brazilian artist whose multidisciplinary work has encompassed painting, drawing, photography, video, and sculpture. Initially studying as a painter, Tschäpe turned her attention to sculpture, photography, and performance after graduating from Hamburg’s Hochschule für Bilende Künste. Her photography and performance often involve the artist or other bodies interacting with or depicting Brazil’s coastal and riparian landscapes. In her paintings, Tschäpe takes inspiration from her memories of these spaces to create her large-scale abstract paintings. Tschäpe holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York and a BFA from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg, Germany. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Den Frie Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; the Sarasota Art Museum, Florida; the Musée L’Orangerie, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, Arizona; the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art, Kasama, Japan; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, and the Contemporary Museum of Art, St Louis. Tschäpe’s work is found in important public collections, including Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., among others.