Today we go #InDetail with a work on cardboard by Ilse D’Hollander (1968 – 1997).
This work was made in 1991 shortly after D’Hollander finished her art studies at the Hoger Instituut voor Beeldende Kunsten St. Lucas in Ghent. Upon finishing school, she had no money for art supplies. Her decision to paint on cardboard came about purely for economic reasons. On her way home, she discovered that a local paper factory was planning to discard a sizeable number of large sheets of cardboard. D’Hollander enlisted the help of a fellow student to assist in transporting the materials to her small apartment. Perhaps, feeling less encumbered by this modest material, rather than the more costly high art canvas she had previously used, D’Hollander seemed to find a freedom of expression that had not been evident in her work before. Her paintings on canvas are typified by a more subdued palette for which she would become recognized. By contrast, in this unique series on cardboard, D’Hollander produced 28 vibrantly colored works incorporating collaged elements along with mixed media, including pencil, oil, acrylic, and ballpoint pen, amongst other materials.
#IlseDHollander’s oeuvre exhibits a highly developed sense of color, composition, scale and surface, through the use of subtle tones and pared down compositions. An artist’s artist, her canvases and works on paper favor abstraction, yet subtly allude to the everyday, hinting at nature and the landscape of the Flemish countryside where she spent the last and most productive years of her life.