ODE TO A BEAUTIFUL NUDE

Ode To A Beautiful Nude takes its title from the poem by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), in which the poet likens his lover’s figure to other existing beautiful forms in nature - from the earthly to the cosmic. 

Provocative and lyrical, the poem reads like a state of a dream, or a trance. It is an ode to a beautiful nude, but also a declaration of love. The woman in the poem does not simply exist in the beauty of the human form, but is also the source of divine perfection for all that is pure in the world – her beauty extends to a land of forests, sea-music, flowering fire, sweet fruits of a deep velvet, light that falls over the world – “the moon lives in the lining of [her] skin.”

The exhibition features a group of artists who propose the fusion of femininity and nature, bringing the poet’s art to life from a female gaze. Using the poem Ode To A Beautiful Nude by Pablo Neruda as both an inspiration and a point of departure, the artists have created paintings that reinterpret this poem by the acclaimed poet. These female portraits reclaim the male gaze and challenge the traditional roles and hierarchies between male artists and female muses. They illuminate the emotional facets of the human form and liberate the female body from the male gaze.

Portrayed as ethereal and erotic, sensual and spiritual, soft yet undeniably powerful, the women in these paintings celebrate the sensational dimensionality of womanhood. Weaving together sublime expressions of poetry and of painting, these works reveal the capacity of art to immerse us in the beauty of what is timeless and universal. The show is co-curated with Claudia Cheng.

Jade Ching-yuk Ng (b. 1992, Hong Kong)’s kaleidoscopic paintings reveal scenes of romance and intimacy that defy a straightforward gendered reading. Deconstructing classical symbolism and challenging traditional concepts of gender roles, Jade’s work encourages the viewer to consider the fine edge of collision between reality and fantasy. The painting The Chime of a Crystalised Body that the artist created for this exhibition was inspired by the transparency of Edmomd Etling’s glass nude sculpture—the fluidity of the figure in the work is akin to glass which is abstract and malleable. 

Laura Berger’s (b. 1979, USA) work features female figures on minimalist planes. External identifiers such as race and age are removed from her figures to represent the universality of 
the human experience and to accentuate the human soul. The work she created for the exhibition, are inspired by the relationship we form with our environments and the interdependence of our inner and outer worlds. The lyrical painting honours and worships the body, of ourselves or of someone we love, and in that act we are also worshipping the earth, celebrating nature itself. 

Astrid Styma (b. 1988, Germany) captivates viewers through her female figures rendered in smooth brushstrokes near photorealism. By depicting her female subjects in moments of profound intimacy or introspection, Styma creates a space that interweaves the physical form with the inner psyche. 

Yangqing Pei’s (b. 1991, China) practice is an exploration of the intimate symbiotic relationship between human forms and nature, as well as imaginations of poetic spaces derived from narrative contexts composed of Chinese ideographic characters. 

Johanna Seidel (b. 1993, Germany) explores various perceived realities using a lyrical visual language that incorporates symbols from history, mythology, and dreams. By immersing her figures in spaces merging dreams with reality, she crafts a world of magical realism on her canvases. Inspired by the poem’s expression of wonder and amazement at beauty, the artist created the painting The Interminable Present which depicts a shooting star—an incontestable symbol of nature’s beauty and impermanence. 

Chechu Álava’s (b. 1973, Spain) work often begins with reinterpretations of well-known pieces by male artists, photographs, or historical moments that reflect gender hierarchy. Her work liberates the female body from the male gaze, merging sensuality with spirituality through her use of a soft-focus technique evoking the dreamy, creamy flesh seen in the depictions of angels in divine frescoes. In the work she created for the exhibition, In Body and Soul (Lee Miller), the figure is almost transformed into light—transcending the physical state to reach an ineffable essence.

Emily Weiner’s (b. 1981, USA) paintings consider the art canon through a feminist and Jungian lens. Her work Terra Nuda in the exhibition features a curtain that echoes the silhouette of a female torso, which opens up to a skyscape that transitions from pearlescent pink to glowing yellow to midnight blue, illustrating the ever-changing dimensionality of womanhood.