Ever since we first saw her work at Nicolai Wallner's booth at Art Basel back in September, we've been very much into the works by Copenhagen-based Eva Helene Pade. In the meantime, she had her works in a few group shows here and there (one piece is included in the current show at Nicolai Wallner), and probably the most exemplar piece was included in Uno, Nessuno, Centomila, a group show back in November 2021 at Palazzo Capris, Turin, curated by Arturner.
Showing alongside Justine Neuberger, Pia Krajewski, Jan-Luka Schmitz, and Malte Bruns, Pade introduced this multipanel piece installed on a folding screen, accentuating the narrative nature of the work. On five wooden panels, the Master’s student at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art’s school of painting depicted five separated scenes, all dominated by human figures. Painted in human scale, the three 200x170cm and two 200x60cm oils are showing scenes of romance, solitude, loss, as well as interaction with society/crowd or the environment. Connected through the recurring image of a red-headed female protagonist, as well as a lemon tree, the images are constructing an intense, yet subdued atmosphere, which is underlined with the use of washed-off warm hues of glowing yellow, orange, and blood reds. Danse Macabre starts with a murmur-infused graduation painting A Story to be Told (Danse Macabre #1) and ends with the wind howling parting scene in which a female figure dressed in black is almost disappears in the pulsating, lustrous warm yellow scene. Pade will be having her next solo show with Nicolai Wallner later this year so buckle up for more Scandinavian melancholic beauty. —Sasha Bogojev