Isabelle Halmos
Isabelle Halmos is a 2021 graduate of Drawing and Painting from OCAD University, completing her Bachelor degree in Fine Arts in Toronto where she was born and raised. She is aiming to become a practicing visual artist, and eventually work as an art restorer and conservationist for private and public art collections.
Her attention to detail gained from years of photorealistic commissioned sketch work is apparent as she turns photographs and live subjects into drawings or paintings. Her current work focuses on issues of body and gender as well as sexual assault/harassment which she achieves through paintings and installation work. Her art is mostly figurative, combining her hyper-realism with abstract principles.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Isabelle Halmos is a portrait artist whose work focuses on the female experience, including serious issues such as sexual assault and harassment, yet she is able to celebrate women’s bodies through expressionistic colour and bold, playful compositions that tell a story. Captivated by bringing beautiful people and faces to life, she spends a considerable amount of time and detail on the nuances of facial features, then uses her love for abstraction and gestural, expressionistic lines to create bodies and backgrounds. By doing this, she is able to convey messages about the confusion women feel about the ownership of their own bodies.
Isabelle Halmos is a 2021 graduate of Drawing and Painting from OCAD University, completing her Bachelor degree in Fine Arts in Toronto where she was born and raised. She is aiming to become a practicing visual artist, and eventually work as an art restorer and conservationist for private and public art collections.
Her attention to detail gained from years of photorealistic commissioned sketch work is apparent as she turns photographs and live subjects into drawings or paintings. Her current work focuses on issues of body and gender as well as sexual assault/harassment which she achieves through paintings and installation work. Her art is mostly figurative, combining her hyper-realism with abstract principles.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Isabelle Halmos is a portrait artist whose work focuses on the female experience, including serious issues such as sexual assault and harassment, yet she is able to celebrate women’s bodies through expressionistic colour and bold, playful compositions that tell a story. Captivated by bringing beautiful people and faces to life, she spends a considerable amount of time and detail on the nuances of facial features, then uses her love for abstraction and gestural, expressionistic lines to create bodies and backgrounds. By doing this, she is able to convey messages about the confusion women feel about the ownership of their own bodies.
$1,100.00
Oil on wood panel.
18x24"
The painting depicts two nude women sitting on the branch of a tree, surrounded by a dreamlike and otherworldly atmosphere. The colours are bold and rich, with swirling patterns and abstract shapes creating a sense of energy and movement that contradict the women's serene faces. The title alludes to the women misbehaving in some way that the viewer is left to imagine.
$3,000.00
Oil on canvas.
36x48"
Arrival is the last of a series of three oil paintings about my personal experience and healing process from sexual harassment and assault. To represent coming to terms with my body after years of struggling, I am pictured coming out of the water and covered in mushrooms. Since mushrooms grow out of dead and decaying matter, this represents how although I am not yet re-blooming with flowers, I am now ready to heal.
$3,000.00
Oil on canvas.
36x48"
Keep it to Yourself is the second in a three-part series of oil paintings about my personal experience and healing process from sexual harassment and assault. To represent the suffocating feeling that overwhelmed me when I was 18, this painting features myself underwater and covered in dying flowers to symbolize how I felt like I only existed as an over-sexualized being.
$3,000.00
Oil on canvas.
36x48"
Take the Long Way home is the first of a series of three oil paintings about my personal experience and healing process from sexual harassment and assault. By using flowers as a symbol for the platonic version of myself before I was hyper-sexualized and objectified, this painting explores the confusion I had about myself at age 13 when I was first receiving unwanted male attention.
$2,000.00
Oil on canvas.
36x36"
"Nia" is a captivating large-scale portrait of my decade long best friend. She is depicted as looking hopeful for the future, but that isn't the truth. Struggling with crippling depression stemming from her dysfunctional family and childhood sexual assault, she is unable to envision her life turning around. Telling women's stories of abuse has been important to my artistic career as someone who has experienced it first-hand. I have brought her to life by carefully studying the nuances in her expression, and the painting as a whole is brought to life by the gestural mark-making in the background, representing the darkness, the light, and the colour that radiates from her. To celebrate her identity as a black woman, I wanted to highlight her hair by using similar brushstrokes in the background, and having it stand out against her shirt which I left loose and unfinished. Her photorealistic, detailed face against the abstract, chaotic background is a way of exhibiting the power she has over the circumstances life brings her.
$1,250.00
Charcoal, oil pastel, and acrylic on canvas.
24x40"
Longing is an alien-like figurative painting that captures the essence of abstract art. The strange figure at the centre of the painting consists of sharp angles and amorphous shapes, inviting the viewer to get lost in its beauty and complexity. My process included printing a photo on shiny paper, crumpling it, then taking a photo of it painting that. Instead of paint, I gravitated towards charcoal and oil pastel for the figure, making it more of a large drawing than a painting.
$1,550.00
Oil on wood panel.
24x30"
Spring Picnic is a celebration of colour, femininity, and the joy of sharing a special moment with a friend. The painting depicts two women sitting side by side, one holding a knife in one hand as she is about to slice a celebratory cake. The vibrant colours of the painting are a reflection of the feeling shared between the girls, with the background consisting of bright yellows and greens that serves to enhance the colours of the figures in the foreground. The background is flowery and painterly to create an overall whimsical atmosphere that can only be described as a spring picnic.