Ida Wollens (°1985, Belgium) lives and works mostly in Belgium, though
she presently operates from Montréal.
The artist’s early work spawned from a rigorous quest for reducing
familiar images from art-historical and popular culture to pure form stripped of
its literal message. The observer is challenged to detach him/herself from the
original meaning of the images in order to bestow upon them a new one. The
overwhelming combinations of colour and exuberant brushstrokes in the paintings
bedazzle at first but are offset by the subtle presence of recognizable forms
and patterns.
In her later work the artist has become more concerned with the tactile
and visual interplay between the paint and the act of painting. Her pictures now
originate from the constant repetition and destruction of the order that is
created whilst painting. Images are stylized layer by layer until they become
detached from the formality of the idea they represent and start to approach
the essence of painting as such. If the pictures are construed through the act
of painting without a deterministic design, every step in the process is still the
result of a deliberate search for the right balance between absolute
illustrative freedom and visual unity.
The most recent work of the artist is characterized by a restrained
brush technique and distant approach. The graphic stratification of the
paintings emphasizes the distinctive nature of the images, which become imbued
with a touch of the theatrical in the methodical painting process; pernicious
forces at times filter through the canvas. The artist has developed a tendency
for opposites, from the destructive to the constructive, the systematic to the
nonchalant.
The artist’s evolution can be traced through the “Twin Peaks” series, an
ambitious sequence of works steadily developed over the course of the past
eight years and inspired by an inquisitiveness into the potential for visual representations
of two elements: mountains and roses. The warmth and vulnerability of the rose
contrast starkly with the coldness and indifference of the mountain. One of the
paintings in the series shows two peaks unstirring in the void, against a rigid
background of horizontal lines. The mountains have become the most organic form
of the whole, with rugged lines subtly suggesting a rocky surface.
Though the artist’s approach to painting may appear rigid, it is never
devoid of whimsy. The at first sight neat repetition of images in Ida’s
paintings proves, upon closer inspection, far from identical. The artist plays
with forms, sequences and conventions; she imposes upon herself a whole set of
rules to which is adhered with nearly neurotic resolve. This game of restrained
discharge creates subtle irregularities and ostensible flaws that ensure the
paintings remain playful and unpredictable for both artist and observer.
Ida Wollens
Klapdorp 26 b 4
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
Idawollens.blogspot.com
Ida Wollens (°1985, België) leeft en
werkt voornamelijk in Antwerpen. Ze verblijft momenteel in Montréal.