Isolde’s works touch several sides of the Vanitas theme.
In a Polaroid picture we see a giant pile of discarded plastic and wrapping material in front of a large Gucci advertisement, which is persuading us that we need those products in order to have a full, happy life. The contrast with the garbage reminds us of the short lifecycle fashion has and therefore the utter uselessness of it all. In true spirit of the theme: shallow focus on appearance brings no happiness.
In another photo we see a cold slab of marble and ants removing the final remnants of something, reminding us that nature will leave absolutely nothing of us on this earth after we have shed our mortal coil, only the good we have done and what we have built.
The image of a woman with a curtain draped over her head is a nod to Magritte’s ‘L’invention de la vie’ from 1928 which showed the fragility of life visually by taking away someone’s identity by wrapping cloth over our heads, which is also a reference to death shrouds. This fragility of identity or being is very cleverly underlined by the girl blending or disappearing into the curtains because of her tattoos and the pattern of the fabric
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