The artist is exhibiting his Untitled Nudes series, originally conceived for the exhibition “Tra noi e gli Antichi. L’instante e l’eternità”, presented at the Roman National Museum (Rome, Baths of Diocletian) in 2023. These nude female bodies, recomposed from a mosaic of scanned images, are reminiscent of those ancient figures, often found incomplete, that have exerted a constant fascination on artists since the Renaissance.
Invoking the aesthetics of the fragment, the composed and the recomposed, Katerina Jebb takes us on a journey steeped in references to the history of sculpture and painting alike, through the outré poses of the models, reminiscent of Ingres’ nudes and the voluptuous curves of Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda, but also the unfathomably black backgrounds, which she seems to borrow from the Venuses of Cranach the Elder.
Despite these aesthetic references, Katerina Jebb’s nudes are far from academic. Passed through the uncompromising filter of her scanner, they provoke a feeling of strangeness, as much due to the anatomical deformations and hiatuses of form left apparent at the junction of the scans, as to the grayed complexions of the bodies and the gazes of the models, who seem to be constantly trying to evade the viewer.
Thursday, March 26, 6:30 p.m. Special meeting with artist Katerina Jebb Free, by reservation only, before Wednesday, March 25, 04 90 49 37 58 or [email protected]
