Karoline Dausien - Jenny

It‘s Easy To Be Populist

Karoline Dausien siphons her visual expression through a cornucopia of rotating elements.

Drawing from: textiles, sculpture, interior design, architecture, fashion, etc, barriers of various disciplines fade into one another with the subtlety of a day dream. Dausien once casually remarked to me: “I’m a non-research artist.”, a statement which in and of itself serves to shed a beam of light on her method. Take, for example, her work “Cigarette” (Table). What is it, exactly? A table, ideally, by nature possesses certain indisputable qualities whether that be function, balance, utility and so on, and yet “Cigarette” manages to escape said parameters. “Cigarette”, eminent of the artists style, allows for the idea of a Table to manifest but most importantly, allows the idea to take shape in a state where there is an understated lack of control, consumed by fluidity and motion. The result is both convexly synthetic and organic, condensed and elaborate; allowing an inspiration derived from a casual observation of the “Bowlingtreff“ in Leipzig and an American amusement park to morph into the motive of one of the table‘s two legs. An oxymoron which can be observed in any way imaginable.

Take, for example, the drawing of a female body helplessly crushed by furniture. Might one classify the image as an intentional statement, a commentary of sorts, or nothing more than a playful, quirky image? Dausien tends to find herself on this precipice often. Ever walking the high wire suspended between a catchy aesthetic and failed craftsmanship. The multiple use of the colour white in all hues and tones bound by a similarity yet nevertheless in contrast to one another. The intrinsic complexity is handled with care and a soft touch, never in a muscular capacity: adding to the non-absoluteness. From the scrawl in Pillow n.1 to the upside down sculpture depicted in it, through many other “mistakes”, Dausien’s body of work contributes to an anti-narrative non linear process. By employing needlework as one of her principal conduits for expression, something which may be considered even by contemporaries (?) as stereotypically feminine, matronly even, Dausien once again finds herself shying away, resisting any trend derivative attitude.

Could it be that her occasional caricaturistic approach is also an antithesis to redundancy,excess and over the top aesthetic? Shiny and smooth, an eyebrow ever so askew, crumpled surfaces, and non sequiturs in general: The border between satire and celebration is perilously thin. Jenny itself is a subtle protest.