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The Arts Intel Report

Jana Euler: Oilopa

Jana Euler, Oilopa.

July 11 – Sept 29, 2024
Avenue Van Volxem 354, 1190 Forest, Belgium

Jana Euler’s style is not for everyone. In 2020, in Art in America, Rachel Wetzler wrote that Euler “does not make bad paintings, but she does, more often than not, make ugly ones.” Euler creates figurative work on a large scale, in garish colors. She accentuates a subject’s undesirable qualities, agonizing over hair in a man’s nose, painting mottled red tongues on troll-like creatures. It’s done deliberately. Euler wants to make us uncomfortable. At Wiels, the exhibition “Oilopa” explores Euler’s characters and utopias. The show’s centerpiece, Oilopa Allee, is named after Europa Allee, a boulevard found in both Brussels and Frankfurt, the two cities in which Euler lives. —Elena Clavarino