We are all familiar with the round, soft shape of the drawn heart, but Jennifer Korsen had something less traditional and anatomically different in mind.
Los Angeles-based Jennifer Korsen is known for her unique heart motifs, so well known that her work is also known as "Korsen Hearts. They appear in many forms as murals, paintings, and mixed media installations.
They are not the typical stylized hearts one often sees, she turns to a more organic representation of the heart, combining the emotional symbolism of the heart with its biological function to create a vibrant and dynamic representation. However, she enriches the anatomy of the organs, which is based on reality, with creative deviations such as additional tubes and arteries.
The false naturalness introduces an artificial element, such as a heart overtaxed by pumping through all those tubes. What kind of person would such a heart produce? At a time when the human body is constantly being manipulated, this reinterpretation is a relevant contemporary document. If you can fix noses, why not drill the heart a little? One more thing stands out. Jennifer Korsen's hearts do not seem exhausted or tired, they do not succumb to infarction, bump or stop. On the contrary, her works are full of life: Sometimes the organs sprout luxuriant leaves, sometimes they sail through space surrounded by stars. In this way, the artist combines the heart, traditionally associated with emotion and intuition, with its biological functions and its mundane role as a creator of life and beauty.
