The fantastic creatures populating the drawings, metal reliefs, glass and resin sculptures of Jens Pfeifer are at play in that dim area where nature and culture cross and are inextricably intertwined. By showing that which does not let itself be placed at a distance while always escaping our rationalizing efforts, the work does away with the modern misconception that people and their cultures exist outside of nature. Rejecting the objective and analytic gaze of scientific reason it favours a vision, which recognizes our dependence as part of an interrelating chain of connections with the world surrounding us.

In his most recent work Jens Pfeifer seems to move squarely to the iconic side, which his work also embodies. Remaining close to his ongoing interests in the manner in which cultural identities are commonly expressed through images of nature and animals found in local geography, Pfeifer now explores this in a culture entirely alien from his own.

In these, as in his previous works, the artist is exploring the manner in which we deeply identify ourselves with images of nature that are found in our local surroundings. The work testifies to the measure by which, despite ongoing processes of globalization and uniformity, we connect to our local and regional rooting, and how in turn we bring these images to act in a new global playing field. It is here that the fantastic creatures in Pfeifer's work run together to reveal those shadows we never manage to shed.

Alice Smits