Iris van Dongen

The depths of ambivalence in Iris van Dongen’s imagery are difficult to plumb. Her elaborately worked drawings—dark scenes in which lone young women flit through thick forests—betray a Symbolist bent that ventures to the boundaries of kitsch, while throwing allusions to the pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau into the mix. For her show at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (her work will also appear in New York’s next Armory Show and in an upcoming solo exhibition in the Hague) van Dongen presents three large drawings. The smallest, Into the Woods, 2004, presents a typical van Dongen figure: A pale woman in a long white dress carrying a fractured skull like an unlit torch. The vaguely demonic ambiance is elaborated in the larger Ophelia By Night, 2004, and in an untitled drawing. Black is the dominant color, seemingly encroaching on everything else. After van Dongen has built up her images in layers of pastels, charcoal, and gouache, she goes over them with a final layer of coal-black pigment, for an effect that suggests impenetrability and obliteration—seemingly, two of her favorite themes.

Translated from German by Emily Speers Mears.