“This work represents the longing for a time and a life that will never come back.”
—Ilona Langbroek Dutch artist Ilona Langbroek’s (b.1970) enigmatic series Silent Loss is inspired by her family history in the former Dutch East Indies, known also as Insulinde. This body of work explores the traces of a complex colonial past and the lost identity of a generation who were forced to leave their country after the Indonesian National Revolution. In Longing for Insulinde #1, an elegant figure wears a kimono (an indoor attire of Dutch and Dutch-Indo women in the former colony) with her face hidden behind a parasol. The atmospheric use of colour, light and shadow exudes a sense of mystery and melancholy that immediately recalls the 17th-century painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Using post-production and printing techniques, Langbroek crafts a mesmerising tableau that transports the viewer to another place and time. Her first solo museum show, Traces, is currently on view at Museum Hilversum.
Langbroek on set, Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd, outside Utrecht.
Exhibited
TRACES, Museum Hilversum, 15 October - 15 December 2022, another
2021 Archival pigment print, mounted. Image/Sheet: 180 x 135 cm (70 7/8 x 53 1/8 in.) Frame: 187 x 142 cm (73 5/8 x 55 7/8 in.) Signed in ink, printed title, date and number AP2 on an artist label affixed to the reverse of the frame.
This work is AP2 from the sold-out edition of 3 + 2 APs.