Isobel Blank's textile horizons on display in Milan at Gilda Contemporary Art

Gilda Contemporary Art welcomes the second Milan solo show of Isobel Blank. The artist returns almost four years after her solo exhibition, also at Gilda Contemporary Art entitled Be Partial, with HORIZONS, an exhibition in which she wanted to focus on the media of fiber art. An eclectic and multi media artist, Blank remains consistent on the themes of her research, centered on identity, individual history, the relationship with time and space and a particular attention to nature, in a philosophical but also concrete sense. It is no coincidence that after a period of silent, almost ascetic reflection and work , in the pandemic and post pandemic years, the chosen medium is textiles, which necessarily involves slowed down times, rhythms that cultivate meditation and reflection.

For this new solo exhibition, Isobel Blank faces nature as a static observer, looking at a horizon that from visual becomes also metaphorical, a clear line that separates but at the same time unites the sky and the earth, understood as “the center of one’s own space,” to use her own words, re-establishing “the proportion between the observer and the surrounding world.” These concepts were developed during the harshest lockdown period, when it was impossible to leave one’s home and the only “escape” was to look at the outside environment through the window. The view of the horizon, when possible, and the vastness of the landscape placed in front of one’s gaze, could thus be a kind of release valve through which one could reestablish one’s own internal balance, thus trying to regain lost calm and serenity.

The two terms (calm and serenity) are appropriate, precisely because of a new evolutionary phase of the artist, which sees her no longer grappling with video cameras and live performances, but with a meticulous and accurate technical procedure, inspiring feelings of tranquility and harmony. Not only from an operational point of view, but also as a general source of inspiration. In fact, it is Eastern aesthetics that establishes a close connection with his worldview, and in particular the idea of “emptiness” and “fullness,” the meditative gestures of the sober and essential Tea Ceremony, or the careful and minimal layout of Zen homes and gardens.

If you will, this, too, is a kind of performance, solitary and without spectators, from which we have as an end result the finished object, the result of a succession of well-thought-out gestures executed with painstaking practice.

Embroidery is the main technique but the compositional and installation aspect of her work is also worth mentioning. The sculptures and wall-mounted objects presented in the exhibition reveal all the skill and dexterity in embroidery acquired by the artist in recent years, managing to combine different materials, such as silicone, foam rubber, crystal, glass and agate beads, fabric, and cotton thread, for the creation of three-dimensional abstract landscapes, small artistic jewels of great preciousness and refinement.

The exhibition is accompanied by a critical text by Alessandro Trabucco, who has been following Blank’s artistic work for about 10 years.

Isobel Blank was born in Pietrasanta, Tuscany. She graduated with honors in aesthetic philosophy from the University of Padua and lives and works in Turin. Her work has been exhibited in many galleries, museums and festivals in Italy and abroad, from the USA to Cambodia, from Mexico toIndia. Her group exhibitions include those at the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum in Milan, the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, the National Center for Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg, Palazzo Widmann in Venice, and the Mumbai Art Room in India. His video art works were screened at theInternational Short Film Festival X “Circuito Off” in Venice and at the Polyforme Videoperformance Festival in Marseille in 2009 and at the 7th Edition of Les Inattendus Festival du Cinéma (très) Independant in Lyon in 2010. He has also received several awards, including the First Prize for video art at the Romaeuropa Webfactory in Rome in 2009. Her illustrations were published by Frigidaire - Art and Culture since 1980 - in several issues in 2012, and in March 2015 Marie Claire Italia included her in the article “Marie Claire celebrates 20 young Italian women artists.” Her work is also included in Young Blood 09 - Yearbook of young Italian creative talents awarded in the world III Edition (Next Exit Edition, 2010, Rome) supported by the Italian Ministry of Youth. Some of his photographic works have been included in Il corpo solitario, the first monograph on self-portraiture in contemporary photography, by Giorgio Bonomi(Rubbettino Editore, 2012) as well as being acquired in 2015 by the public Museo d’Arte Moderna, Informazione e Fotografia (Musinf) in Senigallia as part of theNational Archive of the Photographic Self-Portrait.

In 2022, he is among the artists selected for The Soft Revolution - Salone Italia WTA 25 - a group exhibition curated by Barbara Pavan for the 25th anniversary of the prestigious World Textile Art Biennial in Miami (USA) at the Busto Arsizio Textile Museum.

For all information, you can visit the official website of Gilda Contemporary Art.

Isobel Blank's textile horizons on display in Milan at Gilda Contemporary Art

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