Janise Yntema

A Sense of Place Landscape and Identity

“How do we locate reality in an age when alternative truths frame both politics and press?Is photography objective in representing recorded fact, or has it always been an alternative truth? And where lies certainty within digital imaging, when what is objective and what is manipulated has been blurred, fact is changed and what was once understood is questioned?

Certain facts have no alternatives. Since before the great forests were felled, manipulation of landscape has altered our ecosystem. Whether by plastic micro-particle or accumulated chemical compounds, the changes today may not always be seen, but remain unquestionably real.

This use of beeswax draws the conversation to environmental concerns. Will beeswax encaustic, the oldest known painting technique, remain viable?

What can remain of our attachment to landscape in this globalized world? Our cultural construct as individual identity, our memories of the sublime.

It is idea of landscape that will exist. Somewhere between the myth and reality, therein lies the truth.”

Janise Yntema Bruxelles, 2018

Cadogan Contemporary is delighted to present A Sense of Place, a new exhibition of work by Janise Yntema.

Janise Yntema is noted as one of the foremost contemporary artists working in encaustic, the ancient painting technique composed of beeswax, resin and pigment. She received the 2018 La Vendéene Award for outstanding contribution to the encaustic arts. With her recent inclusion of original photography, she has brought a contemporary platform to this historic medium, obscuring the boundary between photography and painting.Originally from New York, Yntema received her formal art training at Parson’s School of Design/The New School in NYC and is listed, alongside Ai Wei Wei, as one of the “New School Notables”. Yntema’s works are in the collections of numerous museums and public collections in Europe and the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as numerous private collections.She lectures on the global politics affecting farming, chemical usage and the bees, with the goal to bring awareness to these issues, in promoting and encouraging grass-root enviromental change.Freddie BurnessDirectorCadogan Contemporary