Artist Highlight - Josephine Florens

1. Your series “Those Who Look Back” places animals at the centre of human-shaped worlds, often in quiet, tension-filled spaces. How do you approach capturing the gaze of these animals, and what do you hope their presence communicates to the viewer?

In the paintings I shared, the animals are depicted in spaces that feel enclosed, bordered, or carefully framed — interiors, gardens, rooms, or landscapes that carry traces of human order. The gaze is central to these works. I paint it calmly and directly, without drama or aggression, allowing the animal to remain present rather than performative.

The animals are often still, positioned close to the viewer, sometimes almost at eye level. This creates a quiet but unsettling proximity. The gaze does not accuse, yet it does not withdraw. It holds time. I want the viewer to feel observed within a human-shaped environment that no longer fully belongs to humans. The presence of the animal becomes a reminder of vulnerability, endurance, and silent coexistence inside systems built without their consent.

2. The project balances life and death, tenderness and violence, without direct depiction of harm. Could you describe your process of translating these subtle traces into paint while maintaining emotional authenticity?

In the paintings I shared, violence is never literal. It exists as a condition rather than an event. I work with signs of pressure: confined space, unnatural stillness, the contrast between a living body and a controlled environment. The animal is intact, alive, and present — but the surrounding space carries tension.

Tenderness appears through colour, touch, and the way the body is painted. I soften edges, layer paint slowly, and avoid sharp contrasts. Emotional authenticity comes from restraint — by not showing harm directly, the work leaves room for the viewer to sense what is implied rather than explained.

3. Your style is described as “modern vintage,” merging classical composition with contemporary introspection. How do you navigate this synthesis in practice, and how does it serve the themes of memory, displacement, and resilience in your work?

My practice is rooted in classical visual language — composition, balance, and attention to the figure — while my approach to meaning is contemporary and introspective. I work intuitively between these two modes. Classical structure provides stability and continuity, while contemporary sensitivity allows uncertainty, vulnerability, and emotional complexity to remain visible.

This synthesis reflects how I experience memory and displacement: as something anchored in form but unstable in emotion. Resilience in my work is not heroic or declarative. It emerges through continuity, repetition, and the act of returning to painting as a way of holding experience rather than resolving it.

4. The human presence in your paintings is deliberately secondary, sometimes almost absent. How does limiting human figures shift the narrative or emotional focus, and what does it reveal about human–animal coexistence?

By reducing or removing the human figure, I shift the emotional focus away from human narration and toward the space itself and those who inhabit it silently. The environments in my paintings often remain clearly human-made, but without humans present, they become sites of tension rather than control. 

This absence allows animals to exist not as symbols or metaphors, but as autonomous presences. It reveals coexistence as unequal and fragile — shaped by human systems, yet experienced most intensely by those who have no voice within them. The narrative becomes quieter, slower, and more attentive to what usually remains unseen.

5. Layered brushstrokes, unstable contours, and shifting colour fields are key to your visual language. How do these painterly gestures contribute to the sense of vulnerability, impermanence, or psychological depth in the series?

In this series, I use painterly gestures to avoid visual certainty. Layered brushstrokes allow earlier decisions to remain visible, creating a surface that feels exposed rather than polished. Unstable contours prevent the figures from feeling fixed or fully contained, reinforcing a sense of vulnerability.

Shifting colour fields soften the boundaries between figure and space, suggesting emotional permeability rather than separation. Together, these elements create psychological depth by holding tension without resolution. The paintings feel provisional — as if they could change — mirroring the fragile, impermanent states experienced by the animals within these environments.

6. Your personal journey – leaving Ukraine and resettling in Germany – seems to inform the emotional undertones of your work. How does your own experience of displacement and search for light influence the choices you make in composition, subject, and atmosphere?

Leaving Ukraine and resettling in Germany changed how I relate to space, stillness, and attention. In my work, this translates into restrained compositions, quiet scenes, and an emphasis on atmosphere rather than narrative action. I am drawn to moments of pause, where nothing dramatic happens, but tension remains present.

Light in my paintings is subtle and fragile. It is never decorative or dominant, but something that emerges slowly, often indirectly. This reflects my experience of displacement, where clarity and stability are not immediate, but gradually sensed. The atmosphere becomes a way to hold uncertainty while continuing to look — carefully and attentively — for orientation and presence.