Artist: Ilke Cop
Exhibition title: Hardcore / Softspore
Venue: Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, Belgium
Date: June 8 – August 25, 2024
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Tatjana Pieters
Ilke Cop focuses on the position of the female artist and questions the mechanisms behind privilege and representation. The well-chosen titles of her works in themselves give us an insight into Cop’s work. She uses words and images strategically in her exploration of certain issues. A multitude of personal and universal visual references come together on the canvases, allowing the viewer to compose their own narrative. Cop appropriates techniques and compositions that are characteristic of the portraits of rulers. For example, she paints herself in theatrical settings, playing with the convention of draped fabrics. This knowingness serves to break the fourth wall and establish a more direct mode of communication. Cop looks out at us with confidence. She has an air of invincibility and at the same time a certain sensuality, often dressed in her own creations – remnants of her career as a fashion designer. By depicting herself so centrally in her work, she raises questions about authorship and representation: can the artist and the muse be one?
The meticulous rendering of fabrics, the use of colour and the placement of the elements in a fictitious landscape allude to pre -Renaissance painting, in which a symbolic representation was more important than a realistic one. In the background, we see landscapes with echoes of the Flemish Primitives and Magritte, unmistakably Belgian with the typical church buildings. “I cannot deny that I am a white, privileged woman, born in rich Flanders. I want to manifest myself as an artist and at the same time question those privileges. I want to talk about feminism, about colonialism, about gender from my specific position … The question is always: how can I question a situation without robbing another of their voice?»
The luxurious, often exotic fabrics and objects depicted in Prolific and Bountiful are the kind of material things that surround us as modern, wealthy people. Their decorative function was already being mined as a status symbol in traditional still lifes. Here it is not hard to see a parallel with the historical position of the feminine and the exotic. The lemon and chocolate are both imports, made available by a dark colonial past. The artist thus questions her own privileged position and the benefits she derives from it.
– Tim Vanheers
Ilke Cop (BE, 1988) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. In 2010, she graduated with a Master’s degree in Art History, and the core of her ideas and vision began to take root. Until 2021, she ran an acclaimed and sustainable fashion brand (ILKECOP). In late 2018, she began to explore her art practice. She is a member of the new women’s writing collective Hyster-x. In 2024, she will have her second solo exhibition at Tatjana Pieters and participate in the Biënnale Women in Art, Brussels (BE) and the Crystal Ship, Ostend (BE). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Breast’, a show and lecture together with Joëlle Dubois curated by Hyster-x & De Studio at De Studio, Antwerp (BE), ‘Prolific’ at Tatjana Pieters, Barak Lili M at Pilar, Brussels (BE), ‘State of Things’ at KL8 curated by Dilum Coppens & Sandra Meilunaite, Brussels (BE). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Sint-Denijs-City’, a new biennial in Sint Denijs (BE) ‘Search Party’ curated by Ben Edmunds, Tatjana Pieters, Ghent (BE), ‘Ruby & friends’ at Ruby Gallery, Brussels (BE), ‘PASS’ 2021 curated by Jan Hoet Jr at Mullem-Huise -Wanneberg-Lede (BE). Her work is part of private collections across the USA and Europe.
