The last few decades have been marked by a new consciousness, awakened like an elephant in the glass stores of our capitalist society as a result of the global economic and environmental crisis. We are vulnerable, not forever young, not forever pretty, not forever powerful. Nature is fragile, and once the balance is destroyed, it will inevitably hit us back. Each individual realizes that he is somewhere in that cycle, between that beginning with birth and the end that will surely come but does not reveal its secrets.
The work of Ilse Van Roy depicts this intermediate stage, in which we all are ‘in between’ these phases, always uncertain, on the edge of the abyss, vulnerable forever, to all eternity. Ready to forever remind us that we should not run away anxiously. We can stand still, have a look, because nothing is forever, nothing is good or bad, nothing is unbearably ugly or divinely attractive. It is both. Black is light. Silently the work whispers something we have to dwell on every now and then: ‘Memento Mori’... remember that you will die.
(text: Wayn Traub, 2014)
