Jeanne Gaudière (XX-XXI) - Unaware III

«Unaware III» presents a striking, close-up portrait of a black dog, its elongated muzzle and attentive eye emerging against a softly textured ivory background. The animal’s head is turned slightly downwards, creating a quiet, introspective expression, while a small star-like highlight on its forehead introduces an unexpected point of light. The composition is deliberately minimal, with the dark silhouette occupying one side of the canvas and generous negative space lending the portrait a sense of calm and stillness.

Jeanne Gaudière combines simplified forms with subtle tonal variation to capture the character of her canine subject without relying on excessive detail. The contrast between deep blue-black tones and the pale background gives the painting a graphic clarity, while the restrained brushwork preserves a sense of softness and depth. Both intimate and contemporary, this modern dog portrait moves beyond straightforward animal representation to explore presence, perception and the quiet mystery of a gaze. It is a distinctive work of figurative art for collectors drawn to contemporary animal portraiture.

Unique SKU: HCO-JGA-UNA-2026-023

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Jeanne Gaudière

Jeanne Gaudière is a self taught artist based in Hamburg whose practice is centred on the greyhound, a subject that has accompanied her since childhood. Drawn to the animal’s quiet elegance, elongated form and instinctive reserve, Gaudière has gradually transformed this enduring fascination into a visual language of her own.

Her ongoing unaware series considers presence, solitude and the invisible interior lives of other beings. The greyhound becomes more than a depicted animal: it is a figure of return, a quiet symbol of recognition and of finding one’s way back to something instinctive and deeply familiar.

Gaudière’s compositions are deliberately restrained. Pale grounds are interrupted by dark, almost silhouetted forms, creating a tension between light and shadow that recalls the visual paradoxes of René Magritte’s L’Empire des lumières. Here, daylight and night coexist within the same pictorial space. The recurring star introduces a small rupture within this stillness, at once atmospheric detail and personal signature.

By presenting the greyhound from behind and withholding its face, Gaudière moves away from conventional portraiture. Identity is no longer communicated through expression or gaze, but through posture, presence and the space occupied by the figure. Her paintings inhabit the threshold between portrait and symbol, specificity and abstraction, inviting the viewer to consider what remains unseen.

At the heart of Gaudière’s practice is a simple yet compelling proposition: that existence does not require acknowledgement. The greyhound does not perform for the viewer. It simply occupies its own world, complete within it.

Havisham & Co.
Presented by Havisham & Co., representing artists whose practices preserve and reinterpret the language of European painting.

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