The “colour black” is the unifying thread in Isabella’s work. She sees the use of colour in her art as transcending the purely aesthetic, often serving as a conduit for deeper symbolic exploration. The colour black takes on a profound significance, acting as a portal to realms of ritualistic expression. Black, traditionally seen as the absence of colour or the amalgamation of all colours, becomes a potent symbol in this context. At the forefront of black's symbolic repertoire is its representation of the void or infinite potentiality. Isabella’s work leverages the starkness of black to evoke a sense of emptiness pregnant with creative possibilities, inviting viewers to contemplate the boundless potential within the unmanifested. In this way, black becomes a threshold, a canvas awaiting the emergence of form and meaning. Isabella uses multiple different shades, textures, and gestures of blacks, as well as dark browns and dark hues of other colours, to create a sense of subtle tonal variations and movement within the void. Some of her paintings are the result of her daily meditation sessions from which she emerges and tries to directly paint the moving blackness she sees when she closes her eyes in that state of disciplined presence and concentration. Isabella finds blackness – much like the dead of the night – to be fascinating. A refuge. Something very close to “truth.”
ISABELLA LOLITA
She finds that what is obscured usually invites the viewer to be more present with the piece – to really look at what’s beyond the surface, rather than just see. To get close to the threshold of the canvas and really peer in at slightly light details looming behind the layers of blackness. Further, she plays with the spaciousness of black that allows one to feel they have more space to be present, which in itself is a profound and radical experience. Isabella’s works aim to immerse the viewer in a contemplative journey – whether that is for 5 minutes, 1 hour, 3 days, 2 seconds or multiple years – inviting them to explore the mystical and transcendent qualities associated with the colour black, drawing them more deeply into themselves in the process. This is something that she finds to be very transformative in an age of relentless information overload, and constant unnatural blue light beaming from screens and bulbs. In this way, she extends her ritual outside of her studio and to her audience. The way her works are positioned and displayed – whether it is as 3D cocoon-like painting installations or accompanied by a certain type of dim lighting, a sound, a text, a live performance, a direct-participation by the audience, or a moving image – are all part of this ritual that is being offered to viewers and participators.
