What remains untranslatable in a work of art, the obscure margin that even the artist has difficulty explaining, is that which proves, fully, its value. An excess of projection or conceptual premeditation as defined as correct creative procedure risks to assimilate, in the end, a kind of “artistic engineering” that leaves nothing to the imagination. In the overall work of Isabelle Fordin, as in the latest, this risk seems to have been avoided. In the necessary projection, the surveillance of materials and the creative procedures of Fordin, it's insinuated a visible passion, with no lack of polemic oversight, and with an active and volcanic temperament she mixes cards and rules with unforeseen hesitation, and, without a doubt, originality. White, as a chromatic dimension obsessively recalled, the use of canvas and cloth (from parachutes) appears rounded or rose-like, velvet or sail-like; and their reproduction in photo or video gives account to the constant discoveries that doesn't limit it to the plurality of used materials, of the techniques, the form, but translates a stronger need of communication. An obstinate demand for a sense.
The photos framed and arranged on two walls of the exhibition are placed in confrontation. Or, in dialogue. One side, one series, with each photo fixed on canvas and from which hangs a strip of white material, half twisted, in a calculated game of inside (canvas and perspex), and outside, of the contained and the “flowing” out: all of which has an impressive visual effect. The other side, the photos are coloured. The communication that it evokes between the first and the second series is, anyway, between an inventive articulation and a photographic rendering, between movement and stillness, at least in appearance. The subjects are the same; and together for overlying reasons, the end results are profoundly diverse. The images are taken from some installations in the natural setting. They let you see an olive tree where the trunk is ringed or crowned by a white base (again;white) of parachute material. And then; the same material laid out on the ground is dotted by olives. Another place, that of the installations. Another confrontation, live, this time. Nature and culture. Nature and artificial. It's well known that white, dear to Isabelle Fordin, is in some traditions of the extreme orient, a symbol of death; in the western culture, of purity, innocence, integrity. In the end you ask yourself. This is a symbolic representation? A “saving”vocation, ready to protect that which man constantly destroys? Or what? The artist, as always, doesn't give answers. Or solutions. She's limited, with humble pride, to offer to the eyes and to the free consideration of the viewer, her work.
Domenico Vuoto.