Ilse D’Hollander
Over the past decade Ilse D’Hollanders work has been the subject of a number of solo and group presentations in Europe and abroad. Writing about D’Hollander’s paintings in The New York Times in 2016, art critic Roberta Smith commented that ‘They share some common ground with Belgian painters like Raoul de Keyser and Luc Tuymans, but their softened geometries are more open, accommodating suggestions of landscape, seashore and weather as well as abstraction.’
The paintings of artist Ilse D’Hollander are calm and well-balanced, with a lightness she has never known herself. Her landscapes are of an exquisite beauty, engulfed in light colours. Visual elements such as a branch, a house or a road are converted into more abstract images, balancing between recognisable and suggestive. She used to take long walks and cycle through the fields and woods, and on return to her studio she would paint the images in her head. D’Hollander studied in Ghent and Antwerp and then moved to the quiet countryside. She chose to take her own life when still very young, leaving a large oeuvre of paintings. A solo exhibition of her work can now be seen at the Victoria Miro gallery in London. The exhibited pieces give an overview of her early and later works, like a timeline of emotions.
Ilse D’Hollander, Victoria Miro, London W1, until 21 December
WORDS BY STEPHANIE DE SMET