Mie Olise Kjærgaard, Skipping the beat

La galerie Ketabi Bourdet a la grande joie de présenter la première exposition personnelle de Mie Olise Kjærgaard à Paris, Skipping the Beat.

Née en 1974 au Danemark, Mie Olise Kjærgaard a développé un langage pictural singulier, où la monumentalité de la peinture à grande échelle se mêle à une réflexion sur la représentation des femmes aujourd’hui. À travers ses toiles, elle invente un nouveau récit féminin qui résonne avec notre époque, où une génération de femmes s’impose et réclame visibilité et espace. Ses oeuvres mettent en scène des univers peuplés de femmes actives, présentes, insoumises : athlètes, musiciennes, mères, amies, parfois associées à des créatures mythiques ou fantastiques.

Chez Mie Olise, l’expérience vécue se transforme en allégorie. Des gestes ordinaires — porter un enfant, saisir une raquette, avancer dans l’espace — deviennent les fragments d’une iconographie à la fois tendre et sauvage. La figure maternelle, loin de la Madone immobile, se déploie comme une force en mouvement : emportant ses enfants sur des bêtes indomptées ou affrontant un terrain incertain avec énergie et humour. Ainsi, l’artiste propose une nouvelle image de la femme : non pas figée ou passive, mais toujours en devenir.

Avec Skipping the Beat, cette recherche prend pour terrain le rythme, la musique et l’instabilité du geste. Sur les toiles, les corps se plient, se tendent, courent, chevauchent, jouent de la musique dans une intensité parfois maladroite. Une raquette de tennis devient guitare, une femme joue du piano suspendue à un cheval (Flying piano, Riding drums, 2025), un orchestre joue sur un radeau à la dérive (And the sky was made of Ametyst, 2025). Ces scènes ne sont pas des performances préparées, mais des improvisations vécues, où la musique circule comme une énergie latente, portée par des corps en mouvement.

Le rythme est instable : les gestes s’entrechoquent, se décalent, sautent un temps (d’où le titre « Skipping the beat »). Mais c’est précisément dans cette instabilité que l’artiste trouve son temps. Ses figures ne cherchent pas la perfection ; elles tâtonnent, improvisent, recommencent. Être en déséquilibre et hors tempo, loin d’être le signe d’un échec, est pour l’artiste la condition même de la liberté, loin du contrôle permanent.

Le geste de peinture de Mie Olise traduit cette énergie: les lignes tremblent, les couleurs vibrent, les corps débordent du cadre. Historiquement, la peinture a enfermé la figure féminine dans une image composée et offerte au regard. Ici, les femmes échappent à ces limites : la peinture elle-même franchit les bords de la toile pour se prolonger sur les murs, envahissant physiquement l’espace de la galerie à travers une fresque, et le cadre ne se révèle qu’à travers le refus de l’obéir.

Ainsi, Skipping the Beat n’est pas un simple thème, mais pose les bases d’une condition picturale. Les gestes se redoublent, les rythmes se brouillent, l’équilibre chancelle — et pourtant le mouvement se poursuit. Ce qui pourrait paraître dissonant devient le lieu même de la création. Les figures ajustent, répètent, reprennent, habitent un présent instable mais vital. Les œuvres de Mie Olise demeurent suspendues, vivantes précisément parce qu’elles refusent toute forme d’achèvement.

Mie Olise Kjærgaard (née en 1974 au Danemark) est une artiste plasticienne dont la pratique se déploie entre peinture, sculpture et installation. Formée à l’architecture à l’école d’Aarhus et à The Bartlett (UCL, Londres), puis diplômée du Central Saint Martins (MFA, 2008), elle développe un langage singulier autour du mouvement, de la liberté d’action et de la subjectivité féminine, dans des œuvres gestuelles, souvent monumentales.

Son travail a fait l’objet de plusieurs expositions personnelles, notamment au Trapholt Museum (Danemark), où son exposition "Agile Aggressions" est actuellement présentée, à la Fondation Karpidas à Dallas (Texas, 2023), au Museo de Arte Acarigua (Venezuela) et au Skive New Museum of Contemporary Art (Danemark). Elle a également participé à de nombreuses expositions collectives dans des institutions importantes, parmi lesquelles le Museum of Fine Arts de Houston, le Utad Museum of Contemporary Art et le Torrance Art Museum (États-Uns).

Lauréate de plusieurs résidences internationales — Skowhegan (USA), ISCP (New York), Art Omi (USA), Mie Olise Kjærgaard vit et travaille aujourd'hui à Copenhague.

Ketabi Bourdet is delighted to present the first solo exhibition of Danish artist Mie Olise Kjærgaard with the gallery, Skipping the Beat.

Born in 1974 in Denmark, Mie Olise Kjærgaard has developed a distinctive pictorial language, where the monumentality of large-scale painting is intertwined with a reflection on the representation of women today. Through her canvases, she invents a new feminine narrative that resonates with our time: a generation of women asserting themselves, claiming visibility and space. Her works stage universes populated by active, present, and unrestrained women—athletes, musicians, mothers, friends—sometimes intertwined with mythical or fantastical creatures.

In Kjærgaard’s work, lived experience transforms into allegory. Everyday gestures—carrying a child, holding a racket, moving through space—become fragments of an iconography that is at once tender and wild. The maternal figure, far from the immobile Madonna, unfolds as a force in motion: carrying her children on untamed beasts or confronting precarious ground with energy and humor. The artist thus proposes a new image of womanhood: not fixed or passive, but always in the making.

With Skipping the Beat, this research finds its terrain in rhythm, music, and the instability of gesture. On canvas, bodies bend, stretch, run, ride, or play music with an intensity that may at times seem off beat. A tennis racket becomes a guitar, a woman plays piano while suspended on a horse (Flying piano, Riding drums, 2025), an orchestra performs adrift on a raft (And the Sky was made of Ametyst, 2025). These scenes are not rehearsed performances but lived improvisations, where music circulates as latent energy, carried by bodies in motion.

Rhythm here is unstable: gestures collide, fall out of sync, skip a beat (hence the title Skipping the Beat). Yet it is precisely in this instability that the artist finds her own tempo. Her figures do not seek perfection; they fumble, improvise, begin again. To be off-balance and out of time, far from being a failure, becomes for Kjærgaard the very condition of freedom—away from constant control.

Her painting gesture channels this energy: lines tremble, colors vibrate, bodies overflow the frame. Historically, painting has confined the female figure within composed images offered to the gaze. Here, women escape those limits: the painting itself breaks through the edges of the canvas, extending onto the gallery walls in a mural, revealing the frame only by refusing to obey it. Thus, Skipping the Beat is not a mere theme, but the foundation of a pictorial condition. Gestures double back, rhythms blur, balance falters—yet movement continues. What could seem dissonant becomes the very site of creation. Figures adjust, repeat, resume; they inhabit a present that is unstable yet vital. Kjærgaard’s works remain suspended, alive precisely because they refuse any form of completion.

Mie Olise Kjærgaard (b. 1974, Denmark) is a visual artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation. Trained in architecture at the Aarhus School of Architecture and The Bartlett (UCL, London), and holding an MFA from Central Saint Martins (2008), she has developed a distinctive visual language centered on movement, agency, and female subjectivity. Her work is characterized by expressive, often large-scale gestures that explore freedom and embodiment. Kjærgaard has presented numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Trapholt Museum (Denmark), where her exhibition Agile Aggressions is currently on view, the Karpidas Foundation in Dallas (Texas, 2023), the Museo de Arte Acarigua (Venezuela), and the Skive New Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at major institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Torrance Art Museum (USA). A recipient of several international residencies — including Skowhegan (USA), ISCP (New York), and Art Omi (USA) — Mie Olise Kjærgaard lives and works in Copenhagen.

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Mie Olise Kjærgaard, Skipping the beat: KETABI BOURDET - 22, PASSAGE DAUPHINE 75006 PARIS

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