"On my way to Stockholm" the little thought bubble on Instagram said. It's a feature I usually don't pay any attention to but on this day, I catch it during my lunch break and wonder who Polish-born Berlin-based Aneta Kajzer, an artist who's been on my radar for a while, is meeting in the city. She must be planning a show, I think to myself. Little did I know that she was in fact on her way to Stockholm to attend the opening of her new solo at Stance, a recently inaugurated gallery, that I had somehow completely missed. In art, as we all know; you snooze, you lose. So I rushed over to the gallery the very same day to catch "Meet Me When the Shadows Are Longest", a delightful show for which Aneta presents a new series of her characteristic paintings that merge beautifully with the dimly lit basement gallery space.
C-P: Hi Aneta, having followed you on social media for a while, I was very happy to finally see your work in person at Stance. I was completely unware of the space but what a pleasant surprise. Tell me a little about the choices that went into the show.
A.K: Thank you! Stance has a very unique space - it’s not the typical gallery white cube. I thought paintings that play a lot with light and shadow and strong color contrasts would work well in this setting. That’s what I had in the back of my mind while creating this new body of work.
C-P: Having already exhibited quite extensively since 2017 with a number of past solo shows to your credit;
how do you generally find the act of exhibiting?
A.K: Exhibiting is an important part of being an artist. As much as I love being in the studio by myself developing the work at some point the paintings have to leave the studio and get into a conversation with an audience. I have a constant studio practice whether I have many or little shows coming up. For me it’s important to always be painting and be in connection with my work. In a way you could say I’m not working towards a specific show but when a deadline comes these works will go out as a body of work. There are of course certain decisions like which formats I’m working on. When I know the space, this can influence the works in sizes or even colors choices.
C-P: Your work really needs to be seen up close. I mean, it goes for most art in general, but when only seeing your paintings by way of images, the texture for instance completely goes missing. And I just love the balance between abstraction and figuration, the occasional cheekiness and foremost the usage of contrasting palettes, pastels with dark colors, that almost appears like your signature trait.
A.K: First of all, I try not to be afraid of any colors! They can be strong and bold or soft and pastel, beautiful bright blues or “ugly” muddy browns. Sometimes the color combinations are harmonious and sometimes they are disharmonious which makes the paintings more interesting to me. I always mix the colors directly on the canvas and often let them flow into each other, so I never know exactly how they will turn out. It’s a very playful and intuitive process that always brings something new to the table.
C-P: I think the playfulness really shines through. Run me through an average day in the studio. What does your working process look like?
A.K: I’m not an early bird, so I come to the studio around noon, make a tea and then start settings things up for a painting session. Because I work with highly diluted oil paint with the canvas lying on the floor I always have to wait at least until the next day to hang the painting and see how it turned out. Then I come to the studio with a lot of excitement the next day and I decide whether to overpaint or start something new and the whole process repeats.
C-P: You were born in Katowice but are currently based in Berlin. How do you find the city today from the point of view of an artist? Has it changed much since you first moved?
A.K: I’m based in Berlin since 2017. I moved here after my graduation from the Academy of Fine Arts in Mainz for a scholarship at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. I still think the city is a great place for artists in many ways. There is a big artist community and many interesting galleries as well as a lot of great institutions. However, things are changing here as well. It’s harder to find affordable apartments and artist studios these days and just recently the current Berlin Senate has drastically decreased the cultural budget. I still hope things can change again for the better in the future.
C-P: Out of curiosity, what might be on your bucket list as an artist?
A.K: I don’t really have a bucket list but there is a lot of great museums and artworks around the world, that I would still like to visit someday. For example, I haven’t made it to the Guggenheim in Bilbao yet. I’ve seen a few of Louise Bourgeoise’s spiders by now but I would still like to stand under her big “Maman” there.
For my career as an artist a retrospective at a big international museum when I’m very old wouldn’t be too bad either.
C-P: Lastly, what else might be coming up for you later in the year?
A.K: I just started working on my next big solo show with my gallery Semiose in Paris this fall. I am excited to see where my painting process is going to take me next!
For more info on Aneta, please visit: anetakajzer.de
"Meet Me When the Shadows Are Longest" runs until March 20, 2025, at Stance, Stockholm.