"You often use small, intimate forms like textiles to approach big ideas. Why is that scale important to you? I think it's because a lot of the time my way of accessing those ideas is probably through popular literature or introductions to things. And so my attention, then, is grabbed by something smaller or anecdotal. It's important for me that it's something quite bodily at times. It gives a physical and a mental relationship to these ideas. So, it might be wandering around a museum and being kind of struck by a single object, and it just stays with me."
"Do you think it is a search for meaning? I mean, the thing that interests me most about humans is that for however many hundreds of thousands of years we've evolved into our current condition, we have found all of these different ways to negotiate the world. Of all the awful things that we do as a species, I find that capacity that we have for curiosity and for finding a way to describe something to ourselves fascinating."
"The Dublin-born artist Isabel Nolan is known for her work exploring meaning and uncertainty, taking cosmology, religion and humanism as starting points. She draws on the visual language of the late Medieval and early Renaissance periods, building pieces that are richly textured and often lush. Her Ireland pavilion, Dreamshook, developed with the curator Georgina Jackson, builds on those themes."
"The exhibition explores the fuzzy, in-between state we experience after waking up, when dreams seem to merge with the real world, and ties it to a fictional version of the life of Aldo Manuzio-a Renaissance humanist famous for publishing Greek classics as enchiridia, or portable books, in Venice."
Isabel Nolan creates richly textured works using visual language from the late Medieval and early Renaissance periods. Her practice begins with cosmology, religion, and humanism, aiming to explore meaning and uncertainty. She often works in small, intimate forms such as textiles to approach large ideas through popular literature, introductions, and anecdotal details. The physical scale supports a bodily and mental relationship to concepts, like being struck by a single object in a museum and carrying it forward. Her work centers on human curiosity and the many ways people negotiate the world. The Ireland pavilion Dreamshook connects waking-life in-between states with a fictionalized Renaissance life of Aldo Manuzio, known for portable Greek classics.
#contemporary-art #medieval-and-renaissance-aesthetics #cosmology-and-religion #humanism-and-meaning #textiles-and-materiality
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