All That Was Me is Gone (S), 2020

Isabelle van Zeijl  

Series: Moonshot

Isabelle van Zeijl is an established mid-career international acclaimed artist. Recognized for her mastery to create striking self portraits with depth and meaning who enriches life, possessing lasting and impressionable depth and value.

Van Zeijl dips into the post-modern to craft a vision of feminine power that will have you questioning both historical and 21st-century concepts of beauty. Van Zeijl produces the scenes entirely independently, she is both model, creator, object and subject. Her work possesses a timeless beauty, transcending the boundaries of epoch and media.

As a women she experiences prejudices against women; misogyny in numerous ways including sex discrimination, belittling, violence against women and sexual objectification. “I asked myself what human being do I need to forge myself into, and how can I use my burden to bring light to make a change in the world? I decided to turn my eye to all that was beautiful around me. Bringing beauty, light and inspiration became my mission." Van Zeijl aestheticizes these prejudices in her work to visually discuss this troubling dichotomy, presenting a new way of seeing female beauty, the reinvention of the self.

These ideas are also represented in The Rebirth of The Dutch Flower collection. This series of photographs using discarded flowers from her local growers, to highlight the unfortunate mass destruction during the world lockdown.

But the enigmatic photographs are also a celebration of hope as they give the flowers new life by suggesting renewal, rebirth and reinvention. As Van Zeijl explains, “flowers grow out of dark moments, the more difficulties, the more beautiful they become, they always tend to grow towards the light."

She invests in her images, by using subjects that intrigue and evoke emotion. For her Moonshot collection Van Zeijl was inspired by the deeper meaning of the horse, and decided to portray herself with them. For years she worked with horses. She learned to connect, listen deeply, embody their wisdom and experienced how horses guided her to reach toward a greater freedom. In order to gain the horse's trust she had to evolve into complete surrender. Van Zeijl reinvents herself over and over and has created a body of work going beyond the realm of individual expression.

Her work soothes the eye and touches the soul, inspire the viewer to reconnect with their own higher calling, their soulful longing. To remind them to deepen their courage and humility, empower self inquiry and ask themselves to reach into their soul for greatness and find that beauty is always there.

Van Zeijl has shown work continuously and internationally over the past seventeen years, represented by galleries located in The USA, UK and Europe, and exhibiting at established international art fairs in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Italy. She was one of the winners of The Young Masters Emerging Women Art Prize, London. Her work is held in The Four Seasons Hotel in Paris and in numerous & public collections in the USA, UK, Belgium, Germany, France and The Netherlands.