COOL SUMMER
22 June - 30 July 2024
De Brock is pleased to present its third solo exhibition with Yulia Iosilzon, opening on June 22nd.
For her latest exhibition at De Brock, Iosilzon presents a suite of recent paintings, alongside new sculptural ceramic mosaics. At once figurative yet abstract, fantastical and yet rooted in reality, the artist’s dreamy depictions emanate from her own deliberately constructed and delicately cultivated interior world. The Garden of Eden meets the Garden of Earthly Delights as human-animal hybrids appear at one with their environment and each other, embodying the themes of therianthropy often associated with the mythological or religious storytelling that soundtracked the artist's nomadic upbringing. Dense in biological, ecological and historical allegory, Iosilzon's artworks allude to an almost attainable utopian ideal, hopeful harmony rendered in painterly perfection and ceramic satisfaction.
Following in the footsteps of the famed color-field painters of the 20th century, Iosilzon employs an initial soak staining technique similar to that popularised by Helen Frankenthaler. Pouring thinned oil paint directly onto her semi-translucent silk canvases and allowing pools, spills and stains to sink into the surface, she welcomes each watery wash. Embracing an improvisational approach spurred on by joyous spontaneity. Elsewhere, inspired and influenced by the work of the preeminent abstract painter Charline von Heyl and the pioneering interdisciplinary icon Yayoi Kusama, Iosilzon acknowledges how the former unites seemingly impenetrable painterly patterns with furtive figurative elements whilst always maintaining an economy of brushstrokes, and how the latter demonstrates an ability to elicit variation from seeming repetition whilst boasting a preeminent, playful penchant for the polka dot. For as her pastoral playgrounds hum with hues of pastel pink, sunset ochre or deep purple, the addition of floating dots and fizzing spots nod to an experimentation with expressionism. Be they celestial star dust, potent pollen hanging in the springtime air or the many microorganisms that support a thriving ecosystem, each ethereal orb adds to the atmosphere of Iosilzon’s cosy compositions.
Finally, the artist's new ceramic formations further extends her bucolic paradise into the realms of expanded materiality. Iosilzon’s instantly identifiable stylish silhouettes emerge from the pleasing, multi-panelled mosaics as perfectly placed, paint-by-numbers jigsaw pieces, while flecked or freckled glazes and precise pins replicate that aforementioned bespeckled ambience.