When Flemish artist Ilse D’Hollander committed suicide in 1997, at 28 years old, there had only been one solo show of her works. As with any significant biographical detail of an artist, it’s tempting to view D’Hollander’s output through the lens of that tragedy.
But the canvas- and cardboard-based paintings on display at Victoria Miro’s Mayfair space are far from melancholic or suggestive of distress. The abstract images frequently hint at the flat, expansive landscapes of the artist’s native East Flanders. But despite the nature of these vistas, they avoid seeming bleak and instead transmit a low-pulsing tranquillity.
The gallery space is shared between a number of small-scale, soft-coloured images in Room I and slightly larger, generally brighter compositions in Rooms II and III.
On the whole, they reward being viewed from a distance. D’Hollander’s images are slippery things – the more you try to stare directly at them, the more the shapes start sloshing and sliding around. You almost need to catch them unaware, the way you get side-eye glimpses of uninvited animals flashing through the back garden. Sidle up cautiously, pause, and avoid face-on glaring.
Intense blues, whites and turquoises reoccur; colours we often associate with coastal panoramas. The most striking colour, however, is a warm, sherbet pink that streaks its way across a group of four paintings hung together in the first room.
Reminiscent of a coral-tinted sunset, it fades into a dusky, soft copper (not unlike the ubiquitous ‘rose gold’ beloved of millennials) in a beautiful untitled work from 1996. Suggesting a pathway leading towards a remote house, the picture has the dirtied glamour of hammered bronze. It glimmers slightly in the light, magicking the smell of ploughed soil into the gallery. If there’s a sadness here, it’s that there can’t be more of these.