”Painting makes you dive into a universe that is not linear. It’s not an illustration of something, but it makes you dream. It makes you question certain things. It makes you want to go places and discover.”

In this personal portrait, Tschäpe also reflects her lifelong fascination with water – a recurring theme in her paintings:

”I grew up in Brazil. We would go to the sea every weekend or to the countryside where there were a lot of waterfalls. So obviously, there was a stream of water, an ocean around me growing up. My name, Janaína, is the goddess of the sea, which at some point in my life fascinated me as well. I think everybody tries to find out what their name means. But also, I was always fascinated by the idea of the sea. You know, in terms of why someone would try to build a boat, a ship to go from one country and discover something else? Like what was this longing?”

”Longing is a feeling that I think is the most poetic and beautiful way of going on about your day. It also contains sadness, and sadness is beautiful in the same way as happiness.”

Brazilian-German artist Janaina Tschäpe (b. 1973 in Munich, Germany) lives and works in New York. She has a multidisciplinary practice that spans painting, drawing, photography, performance, video art, sculpture, murals, and installations. Drawing from the natural world, Tschäpe presents dreamlike abstract landscapes inspired by memory and myth. Balancing fluidity with precision, her work is imbued with a universality that reflects the various topographies she has traveled through or calls home – from Germany, Brazil, and America to beyond.

Tschäpe received her BFA from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK) in 1997 and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 1998. Her work is in the collections of – among others – the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; MAM Rio – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro; Museu Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; S.M.A.K. – Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo.

Janaina Tschäpe was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in her New York and Long Island studios. The conversations took place in March 2026.

Camera: Simon Weyhe
Edit: Nanna Dahm
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026

Music via Upright:

Floating Dots by Kaspar Kaae, Brian Batz Andersen
Weightless by Peter Hellemann, Noah Rosanes
Droplets by Mat Andasun Eagerly
Waiting by Bjarni Biering Margeirsso

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