Kaja Meyer’s art explores how seemingly “unconnected entities interact with each other”

“I have always drawn and felt the most like me while doing so,” says Danish artist Kaja Meyer. “I thought that would naturally make me an illustrator, even that I had to be one, but I’ve come to the realisation that’s not necessarily the case. I’m an artist.” Kaja explains of this differentiation that her work is only thriving when she’s “not keeping other people’s wishes and expectations in mind”; when she, instead, has full authority. That’s when it truly comes alive, producing some captivating pieces that are at once earthly and surreal, revolving mainly around flora, fauna and abstract human figures.

These primal symbols, worked into Kaja’s painted and illustrated compositions, are driven by her interest in the fundamental aspects of life. “I like a simple starting point,” she explains. “And then I work my way through them to other topics that are dear to me. These fundamental things are loaded with substance and meaning, both from nature’s side and from my own connection to them.” She gives the relationship between an egg and a worm as an example: one is seen as a symbol of birth and the other of decay. In a sense, they are opposites, and yet their existence is intertwined. “Worms lay eggs and come from eggs and are connected to the beginning of the life cycle, despite the fact that they are often born of decay.”

These existential musings form the backbone of many of Kaja’s artistic explorations. In her painting Critters in a Woodland Still Life, we see “less glamorous animals take their rightful spot on the stage and flaunt themselves”. Snails, caterpillars and butterflies are scattered throughout the scene, crawling up the stems of flowers and on top of fungi. It’s unlikely that Kaja came across these exact creatures in these exact positions, but together they seem to speak to ideas of creation, growth, death and coexistence. The latter is a particularly poignant aspect of the work for Kaja, who says that she finds the painting “very calming and reassuring – everything is just alright.”

With these essential themes in mind, it comes as no surprise that Kaja draws inspiration from everywhere and everything. Nature, literature, art, music – they all seep into whatever she is working on. This openness naturally imbues her work with a complexity of character, and we can find darkness, sweetness and humour all within a single composition. Fittingly, Kaja says she gravitates towards work made by women, trans folk and others that lie outside of heteronormative, male-centric circles. As with her drawings and paintings, which probe the fundamental questions of life, Kaja’s own essence is a driving factor in her practice: “My own gender identity is in everything I am and do, including how I work.”