The work of Iris van Dongen is always instilled by gloomy romanticism. In recent years she has been producing drawings several meters in height, their sheer size giving them a quality one can hardly escape. Though van Dongen\u2019s work comes about mainly in an intuitive manner, the theme \u2018man tormented by demons\u2019 seems to keep cropping up.<\/p>\n
For that reason it often has a melancholic or malicious undertone. The women depicted have a far-away look, because van Dongen sees them as something abstract, as though they were figures from mythology. Although the drawings refer to earlier movements in traditional art, there is always a small element, such as the sweatband with the skull, which shows that it is from the present day: a symbol from a subculture and, at the same time, an age-old symbol. This gives extra emphasis to the aspect of mortality or melancholy \u2013 or neutralises it. \u201cThe oppositions that I juxtapose with each other \u2013 \u2018good and evil\u2019, \u2018past and present\u2019, and, literally, the \u2018figurative\u2019 and the \u2018abstract\u2019, are meant to blur the boundaries of these concepts.\u201d [I.v.D.]<\/p>\n
In this way the glooming \u2018angels of death\u2019 symbolise her psyche, as a mirror of her soul, and seem to pursue her, even though she has resigned herself to the fact that it is she who is pursuing herself.<\/p>\n
Iris van Dongen, born 1975 in Tilburg (Netherlands).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-5336","kb_artist","type-kb_artist","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"article_image":4289,"article_image_bu_de":"Zola\u2019s daughter\/Rain of stars and comets, 2003\/04","article_image_bu_en":"Zola\u2019s daughter\/Rain of stars and comets, 2003\/04","datum_suche":"2013-07-10 10:27:52"},"yoast_head":"\n