Isabelle Gougenheim
- Michael Hanna
- May 10
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Isabelle Gougenheim is a sensory abstract contemporary painter and fashion designer who has exhibited across the United States as well as in France. Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Murmure in Colmar, France, Chicago Truborn, The Other Art Fair, John Hancock Center, Columbia College, and Morlen Sinoway Atelier, all in Chicago. Isabelle’s fashionable wares are sold at prestigious institutions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Birmingham Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, SFMOMA, Louvre Abu Dhabi, as well as Harvard Museums of Art in Cambridge.
The viewer should note, Isabelle’s fashionable wears look like her mixed media paintings, as a result, the article will focus on her paintings as a reflection of her entire portfolio. Derived from sensory experiences of daily life in Chicago, Isabelle Gougenheim’s paintings are executed with an array of media such as acrylic paint, pastels, spray paint, inks, and markers. These fantastical creations have the child-like qualities of modernist masters like Paul Klee but with an urban aesthetic incorporating design symbols and typography. Loose and expressive, Isabelle’s paintings reflect vibrant emotions and spontaneous movement as well as containing a narrative on the essence of dialogue and intimate relationships.
These rich works appear alive and in constant motion with a variety of expressive neon colors reminiscent of a light show or expression of light design. Isabelle also incorporates found objects from her travels and local area as tools in her work, such as brushes from Korea, pieces of wood found on the street, or rags from torn cloth. She prefers working on raw canvases as opposed to primed ones because the approach emphasizes the process over a finished piece. In such a regard, Isabelle could be described as a fluxus painter because the process to her pieces remains as or more important than the final outcome of the artwork. Through integration of improvised media and spontaneous emotions, her works convey the expression and essence of the present moment in time as opposed to dwelling on the past or future.
First Love # 3 (pictured above) remains part of a series reflecting on memory. The piece dabbles back and forth from representational imagery to abstraction such as the depiction of a group of trees on the bottom, a balloon-like form in the center, and figures to the left. With an array of dabbed markings and drips, the piece appears completely improvised and free of any pre-determined planning.
Isabelle Gougenheim pours herself into her work and creates an aesthetic which deeply relates to the audience by conveying a sense of personality and vibrancy. Like the rhythm of a celebratory dance, the paintings express themselves in lyrical improvisation similar to jazz music or contemporary instrumental orchestra. Isabelle’s works are both refined and loose, a chaotic representation of pleasant forms and colors, wildly corralled into a coherent composition which breathes life, movement, and essence of expression in pure form. Her paintings have an essence of fantasy, as if she refabricated a mythological narrative about her everyday surroundings into fantastical depictions of creatures, beasts, smears, drips, text, and streaks of color.
