Exhibited: “Xenoglossy”, ARoS, Århus, 2010 and Nordic Museum of Watercolours, Göteborg, 2011.

Julie Nord has earned her place in the history of Danish contemporary art as one of her generation's most prominent tellers of fairy-tales. Her style is always recognizable – her neat stroke being virtuoso and quite distinctive.

Unlike many of her artist colleagues, Julie Nord primarily works on paper – as an acknowledgment of drawing being something special. Her fibre pen explores with curiosity the boundaries between fiction and reality through references to our common experience: the world of Disney, horror movies, children's book illustrations, but also PH lamps, cookie cutter houses and Dalmatians.

The work here, “Without Title (Zebra Show)”, is more colourful than we often experience from the artist’s hand. The paper is filled out from corner to corner in strong contrasts and patterns growing wild, but the work still contains some of the well-known features of Nord: The little girl with the big round eyes and an adult gaze, memento mori references to the frailty of life and the hunting trophy on the wall, which casts a reversed shadow on the wall and creates an unknown space – a door to another world behind the paper.