Mater Profana (Defiguration) 1969

Asger Jorn made this painting, Mater Profana, and you can almost see him making it. There’s so much energy in the brushstrokes, the colours smeared and scrubbed into each other, like he’s wrestling with an idea and with the painting itself. It's kind of unsettling, but in a way that makes you think. Jorn was part of the CoBrA group of artists who were all about spontaneity and experimentation. You see it in the raw, almost violent application of paint, the way he attacks the surface and distorts the image. The red smear across the woman’s face feels so defiant. I like how Jorn grapples with the weight of tradition, not just copying but transforming it into something new and challenging. It’s like he’s saying, "Let’s not just accept the old stories, let’s question them, mess with them, see what else they can mean." The way painters talk to each other, across time. It’s a real conversation.