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At first glance, you would never guess that the flowing dresses and graceful garments of Ron Isaacs’ creations are anything but.
You’d expect them to flap in the wind, and be soft to the touch.
So it will definitely come as a huge surprise that these gorgeous pieces of “clothing” would do no such thing…because they are not at all what they seem.
“Trompe l’oeil” quite literally means “fool the eye”, which is exactly what the artist is doing.
His medium of choice? Acrylic paint on Finnish birch plywood.
Yes, these clothes are made entirely out of rigid wood.
“My three primary recurring subjects are vintage clothing (for the way it continues the life of the past into the present, for its rich structures and colors and shapes, and for its anthropomorphic presence as a stand-in for the figure); plant materials in the form of sticks, leaves, and flowers (for too many reasons to list); and found objects.”
“They combine in appropriate or surprising juxtapositions, sometimes purely as a visual ‘poem’ of sorts and (if I’m lucky) sometimes as an image with real psychological resonance. Objects occasionally reappear in other contexts and take on new meanings, like a repertory company of actors playing different roles in different plays.”
For Isaacs, trompe l’oeil is a way of expressing his love for the visual world.
Although he can theoretically use real objects to make his installations, he thinks it is much “too direct.”
By using wood to create something entirely unexpected, he is able to understand the objects better.
“That an object made of one material can take on the outward appearance and “reality” of another is of great importance to me — and perhaps part of the reason that historically, making art became allied with making magic,” he said.
Isaacs’ work is currently on exhibit the Tory Folliard Gallery in Milwaukee.