Ilse Pierard
Collages, ° 1976
https://www.ilsepierard.com/Lives in Puurs, works in Antwerp (BE)
How complex is the core of life, how complex its representation? In her paper works Belgian artist llse Pierard focusses on the abstracted form of a cell, the basic and the smallest unit of life. The intriguing paper collages in their reduced oval shape are an ode to the cell, this overwhelmingly powerful organic construct. The treasures inside Ilse’s cells represent the complex capacities of biological cells:
the stupefying ability for self-reproduction and regeneration, the storing of information and maybe even memory, the capability to absorb and emit selectively molecules, to obtain and produce energy – all these stunning powers are inherent in each of the 50 trillion cells in our body.
How to represent all this complexity and the truth within artistically?
How to transport the positive bearing and beauty of the cell as core of life?
The artist’s concern is to represent the timeless aesthetic harmony and beauty of an existential truth with a simple yet intense distillate of her own artistic material and language.
(Text by Dr. des. Nana Kintz)
