The Other

One of the leading voices in the resurgence of European figurative painting, Oda Jaune has, over the past fifteen years, developed a body of work unlike any other in contemporary art. Long before the renewed prominence of figurative painting, she established a distinctive visual language of her own, one in which the body, metamorphosis, and the unconscious intertwine to produce images of striking poetic force and formal inventiveness.

With “The Other”, her new exhibition in Brussels, Jaune expands this exploration through a new group of paintings and watercolours that examine the notion of otherness. The works continue her investigation into the visible and invisible dimensions of living beings, in a world where the boundaries between human and animal, plant life, technology, and the imaginary remain in constant flux.As the artist explains: “The other is everywhere. It resists definition and may take the form of artificial intelligence, an unknown species, an invisible presence, or a reality that eludes our categories. Perhaps it is also that unexplored part of ourselves. Perhaps it has always been within us, accompanying each of our transformations.”This reflection runs throughout the exhibition, where otherness emerges as a fundamental condition of existence. At a time when technological, ecological, and social upheavals are reshaping our relationship with the living world, Oda Jaune’s paintings envision modes of being that elude conventional categories, giving tangible form to what resists language.Oda Jaune’s work inhabits a liminal space where every form remains in a state of becoming. Bodies stretch, split, and undergo metamorphosis within luminous atmospheres where beauty and disquiet coexist. This instability resists any fixed interpretation, continually prompting the viewer to question what they believe they recognize.Executed with remarkable technical mastery, the works combine meticulous precision with extraordinary imaginative freedom. Radiant light, luminous flesh tones, and exquisitely rendered textures stand in striking contrast to the strangeness of the figures, evoking both fascination and unease. Oda Jaune’s paintings invite us to experience otherness as something deeply intimate, profoundly human, and fundamentally sensory.