Inspired by Aby Warburg’s titanic visual atlas, – the oldest form of moodboard to date – The Mnemosyne: inside curated moodboards is where we ask artists to walk us through their artistic research with an archive of visual bits (archived images, camera roll pictures, book pages, videos), to contrast algorithmic feeds and restore the fun in personally-curated visual boards. In this chapter, we asked RCA painting alumni Isabelle Zetterström to guide us through her universe of portals and celestial beings: paintings where organic matter and mystic beliefs combine.
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IZ: Last summer, I visited a couple churches in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, the Cathedral of Assumption and the Sedlec Ossuary. The cathedral’s gothic opulence, bone-coloured interior and adorned displays of the dead, conjured a profound sense of the spiritual and the corporeal body, which deeply inspired “By The Mortal Glint: Diptych’.
IZ: I spend a lot of time looking at cloud formations, this was captured from the plane heading back from Barcelona. I love how clouds and ripples are the wind's visual form. I then imagine the elements of micro- and macroscopic atmospheres tracing the patterns of their own habitats.
IZ: I find my walk to and from the studio deeply inspiring. I walk along a river and see trees, pigeons, shells, flowers, the sun's reflection on the water, and the moon, to name a few. This flower bush blossomed early, meaning the branches were still affected by the winter conditions, while the blooming flowers beautifully contrasted this stark silhouette.
IZ: I recently visited the Huntarian Museum for the first time, and fell in love. It deepened my interest and understanding of anatomical structures, particularly these two fetuses of a bird and a duck captured my attention as eggs and wings are deeply entwined with my current practice. The eggs represent mystery, and the beginning of a life cycle and wings connect with angels and mythology. Metabolising a reference like this allows me to dance around ideas of the corporeal body, lifecycles, the alien and the eerie.
IZ: A visit to the optician deeply inspired the painting ‘The Fertile Ossuary’. I found this scan of my eyeballs to be so beautiful, I left the appointment and headed to the studio, where I added the orb forms that are now central to this painting.
IZ: My sketchbook comes with me everywhere I go, I use it as a visual journal to jot down ideas and inspirations. It is meditative for me and offers an immediacy that oil paint doesn't, it allows me to experiment quickly and freely. Many pages are also self-portraits, these help me process my emotions, thoughts or physical sensations.
IZ: There is always a selection of flowers and trinkets decorating my studio, often picked on my walk or found at a florist, adding the new ones to the ones that decay. This flower, in particular, has been withering so beautifully, inspiring an upcoming painting. I also adorn my surroundings with my ceramics, shells, and books, curating a selection of objects to look at.
More from Isabelle Zetterström's:
