Ernst Yohji Jaeger

Ernst Yohji Jaeger’s paintings evoke classical melancholy within a dreamy surreal narrativ. Drawing on tropes of classicism, such as flowers, and early to late 19th century painting, he combines symbolism with a metaphysical scenery. These mysterious and oneiric visions often depict solitary figures in surreal environments, other-wordly characters at the brink of emerging into our realm or other unknown places. The Japanese-German artist based in Vienna bridges iconography linked to his cultural backgrounds, borrowing Romantic imagery such as in the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, while also referencing Japanese comics. He also takes influence from lesser or unknown artists, uniting these varied sources in a distinctly personal visual language which plays with authorship and identity. His desire is to look beneath the surface of the current state of the world, with its cynical metaphors and masquerades, and to seek out the mundane: here is where he creates his dream-like scenes with allusions to a Freudian unconscious. Untitled 1917 (Study for an Angel / Tear Through Time) depicts an androgynous person lying in some grass by the sea, framed by flowers and reading a book which contains Francis Picabia’s drawing Untitled 1917 – an idyllic setting which nonetheless, carries an uncanny, melancholic atmosphere. In Rebis/​彼岸花, a flower grows from the mouth of a figure surrounded by tall stone architecture resembling an aqueduct. The nocturnal scene of this surrealist painting similarly evokes ulterior realms, whereas in Nigredo, a skull refers to tropes of Vanitas – an allegorical genre of painting characterized by symbols representing transience and mortality.

Untitled 1917, Study for an Angel / Tear through Time, 2024
Oil on canvas
80 × 70 cm (framed: 82 x 72 x 3,5 cm)
Courtesy Mohamed Oeuida

Nigredo, 2024
Oil on canvas
48 × 30 cm
Courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna

Rebis / 彼岸花, 2024
Oil on canvas
45 × 35 cm (framed: 47 x 37 x 3,5 cm)
Courtesy private collection, Asia