Frieda Toranzo. Jaeger Heart Core.

About

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger interrogates the history of painting from a multitude of imagined futures, some utopian and others catastrophic. Not coincidentally, her investigation of history painting focuses on the the centuries which also saw colonial expansion and religious crusading. Toranzo Jaeger appropriates these painterly conventions and imagery—recasting their scenes to image queer and feminist freedom, decolonization and a renewed connection to nature in the face of looming climate disaster. 

Expanding the historical practice of alter painting to encompass new narratives, Toranzo Jaeger’s paintings are often fixed together with hinges to form modular, sculptural forms that are human in scale, mimicking architecture and automotive designs. By situating her works in physical space, Toranzo Jaeger makes painting a performative gesture, crafting tableaux that refuse to be understood from a single perspective. 

Many of her canvases are punctuated by embroidery. Her interweaving of craft into painting is an act of disobedience and a questioning of the placement of value in art history. The artist’s family works with her to embroider her paintings, incorporating both traditional and experimental stitching, which are juxtaposed alongside oil painting. For Toranzo Jaeger, the engagement with ancestral embroidery techniques is a way to shed light on underrepresented histories.

Heart Core, Toranzo Jaeger’s upcoming exhibition at Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, will bring together a new body of work, including a monumental installation consisting of 30 canvases—her most complex work to date.