Eva Helene Pade Nærmere (Closer), 2026

Concluding the series and drawing the viewer into the triptych’s molten heart, Nærmere (Closer) (2026) presents two figures locked in an embrace, their bodies welded together by the heat of the surrounding blaze. Ravaging flames cast the scene almost entirely in golden, hypnotic light – intimating cycles of destruction and illumination, temptation and redemption. Pade often casts her figures in states of suspension, where beginnings and ends become brinks and edges. As she explains, ‘I want it to stay in the collapsing part all the time. I want to keep the tension.’ 

The sacrificial associations of fire and its relationship to catastrophic desire also inspired several paintings shown in Pade’s first institutional solo exhibition at ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art in 2025, where female figures surrendered to beds of sunflowers, consumed by their dark devouring heads and flame-like petals. For Pade, the body forms part of an instinctive, primal language, much like a brushstroke, a gesture or a dance. In her works, it becomes a volatile thing, as though oil paint is not only a medium with which to render flesh physically – a face, stomach, breasts and thighs – but the substance by which it might ultimately be dissolved.