Art Works is delighted to present Beyond the Corporeal Existence, in collaboration with Gillian Jason Gallery. Showcasing works by Megan Baker, Eleanor Johnson, and Jenya Datsko, the presentation shines a light on contemporary women artists. The presentation will be running from 29^th May – 29^th June 2025. Gillian Jason Gallery is the first gallery in the UK to solely champion women artists and Art Works is excited to be a part of this movement of amplifying women’s voices within art across the world. Below is the curatorial essay for the presentation, written by Jordan Tan, Research Assistant at Art Works.

Surveying art historiographies through a contemporary lens, the corporeality of women often appears to be lacking in agency and embodiment. Beyond the Corporeal Existence, a collaboration between Art Works and Gillian Jason Gallery, presents works by three contemporary artists, Megan Baker (b. 1996), Jenya Datsko (b. 1991), and Eleanor Johnson (b. 1994). An exploration beyond the boundaries of the physical form, this presentation reflects on the complexities of existence through the female gaze. Throughout history, the parameters around the position of women within the art space have held a certain rigidity that repeatedly left women as passive object rather than active subject. Despite being the subject of masterpieces, there remains an abject lack of agency amongst those depicted. As for the circumstances of women artists themselves, historically there have been a multitude of barriers to entry and career opportunities for women in the arts. However, with recent movements towards spotlighting and supporting women in art, artists like Megan Baker, Jenya Datsko, and Eleanor Johnson are subverting the historical norms and shifting the roles of women within this space, in the capacity of both artist and subject.  

Within this aspect of subversion, it is also important to note the way in which the male gaze has historically presented women, often characterised beyond the realms of reality. Whether she is a mythical figure in the form of a goddess, or a woman adorned in her finest clothes, there is always a performative aspect that is disrupted by the works of the three artists. Throughout the pieces, women’s bodies and presence are allowed to exist without the constraints of a performative lens placed on them. In addition, the sense of ambiguity surrounding women’s corporeality is often the result of the way in which women are used as the personification or symbolism of commonly depicted subjects like nations and religion. While there are a multitude of critiques to this metaphorical presentation, it also perhaps highlights the multifaceted nature of women’s being. It can be argued that this non-physical space takes away from the corporeal agency of one’s being, but within the context of the three artists, it becomes an aspect that only builds upon the depth and complexities of the characters.  

One of the most prominent disparities between the artists is their focus on abstraction and figuration. While Baker and Johnson’s practices reimagine the traditions of Old Master’s paintings, Datsko retains a figurative approach while still bringing a contemporary narrative to the customs of portraiture. By encapsulating both the physical and mental spaces, a sense of agency and resistance emerges as the subject is celebrated beyond her outer shell. Thus, the depth and layers become revolutionary in their existence, building an intricate tapestry of narratives and unheard voices. The fragile edges of Datsko’s introspective portraits are juxtaposed against the swathes of colour in Baker’s paintings, while Johnson’s oeuvre presents itself at the intersection, with subtle detailing paired with decisive and disjointed figuration.  

 

Eleanor Johnson, Mulberry Juice, 2024

 

An ambiguity exists in amongst these tangible and immaterial spaces, forming a landscape of liminality that possesses endless potential. The contemplative moments encompassed in Datsko, Baker, and Johnson’s bodies of work appear to transcend the boundaries of time, allowing for an expansive exploration of the themes at hand. Throughout the paintings, the parameters of the time frames become blurred in a myriad of ways, from the liminal space that Datsko’s introspective portraits occupy, to the incorporation of the historical with the contemporary in Baker and Johnson’s compositions. This temporal and spatial ambiguity brings to mind the cinematographic practice of Andrei Tarkovsky, the renowned Soviet film director and screenwriter. Tarkovsky’s poetic approach to filmmaking resulted in his quintessential dreamscapes, which occupy a territory between the abstract and the corporeal. Across the landscapes of both Datsko and Tarkovsky, the gentle hum of loneliness becomes acute, capturing the subtle beauty of contemplation. Tarkovsky once described how, “the beauty of an image can be as intense as the loneliness it expresses,” a sentiment that rings true in the quiet of Datsko’s scenes. Across the melancholic landscape, there is an element of strength that builds itself from the emotional depth woven into the narratives. The seamless incorporation of this emotional depth into the figuration of Datsko’s scenes highlights the counterparts of the corporeal body, as it begins to occupy spaces beyond the material.  

 

Jenya Datsko, Windy Day, 2024

 

Across his practice, Tarkovsky employed the principle of ostranenie (defamiliarization), which reimagined the ordinary in order to tease out and present new perspectives. This reconceptualization can be identified in the works of Baker and Johnson as they envisage traditional artistic depictions through the female gaze. This is perhaps most evident in the interpretations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a Latin narrative poem comprised of mythological stories concentrating on the phenomenon of change and in which women often lacked agency and control over their fates. Baker’s painting Lost in an Echo (2024), with its orchestra of the yellows and greens of a narcissus daffodil, examines the tale of Echo and Narcissus. The story follows Echo’s unrequited love for Narcissus, a beautiful young man who is enamoured by his own reflection. After dying from the sorrow of never being able to obtain the object of his affection, Narcissus morphs into a flower along the water’s edge. Alongside its exploration of themes of beauty, self-obsession, and love, the myth brings the intricacies of corporeality to the forefront. Prior to Narcissus’ death, Echo herself is so wrought with longing that she wastes away until she is nothing more than her voice. The demise of both of the characters is inexplicably linked to the mortality of their corporality, but their intangible essence appears to live on indefinitely. Thus, the question arises of what lies beyond the realm of physicality, and the agency that one possesses in how this may manifest. 

 

Megan Baker, Lost in an Echo, 2024

 

While literature often reflects upon the gaze of the viewer, a complexity lies within the gaze of the subject. When considering the female gaze, the internalisation of the male gaze arises that creates an inner patriarchal critic, or as John Berger describes it, “women watch themselves being looked at.” However, this internalised gaze is subverted by the works of the three artists, each in their respective ways. Across her works, Datsko has chosen moments of introspection that place women outside the constraints of performance, allowing them to reveal the strength that arises from the inner trove of emotions. Baker’s disruption is perhaps best mirrored in the constant state of flux that her paintings reside in, the gestural strokes of impasto inferring an organic journey of growth. While Baker’s resistance lies in movement and Datsko’s spotlights moments of stillness, Johnson focuses more thematically on the relationship between beauty and the grotesque. An unaffected playfulness is brought to life by Johnson’s biomorphic forms, disrupting the historic expectations of beauty.  

The theme of agency appears to manifest in Johnson’s oeuvre, particularly in the choices of the artist. The layers of rich art historical context form a sense of timelessness that forges a sense of strength and power to the scenes. Drawing much of her inspiration from the Renaissance period, Johnson has chosen artists that defied the trends of the time or questioned what it meant to be an artist, building parallels with her own practice. A key example of this presents itself in the prolific Baroque painter who provides the reference for one of Johnson’s studies, Annibale Carracci. Carracci rejected the artificial aesthetics of Mannerism, encouraging a shift away from the polished styles of the Italian courts and a return to nature and the techniques of the great Renaissance artists. This rejection of the artificial and the affected resulted in a raw authenticity that perhaps can be applied to Johnson’s body of work, as it subverts the male gaze through an unfiltered lens. The techniques that Johnson utilises, blur the sharp edges of the Old Masters, creating hazy scenes of layered distortion that bring a contemporary perspective to the traditional scenes.  

 

Eleanor Johnson, Colour Study After Annibale Carracci no.3, 2024

 

Despite the innate tangibility of the corporeal body, a realm of potential lies beyond the outer shell of physicality. Baker, Johnson, and Datsko each build upon this concept of the corporeal to create layered narratives that capture the nuances of the human existence. By disrupting the boundaries of art historiographies, each artist articulates a contemporary lens that simultaneously subverts and reimagines an embodied reality.