Press release

Isabella talks in the way she writes: with erudition, originality and modesty, in asides and anecdotes. Every object in her apartment has a story. Both on the page and in person, she’s full of curiosity, determined to get to the heart of a situation. I ask her what drives her writing. She replied: ‘I always insist on saying something that is very true’

– Jennifer Higgie


At Isabella Ducrot’s second solo exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ, the artist demonstrates her unwavering ability to be continually inventive while delving into familiar motifs, providing an intimate insight into her artmaking practice. Remembering flowers echoes Ducrot’s lived environment, where floral arrangements, figurative paintings, found textiles, collected ceramics, books and artworks of Ducrot’s own creation collide. As both an artist and writer, Ducrot boldly defies pre-established genres, freely combining visual signifiers with untethered excerpts of raw and translated language to craft an exhibition that resonates with the cadence of linguistic expression.

In this ambitious new body of work on textile, each titled Surprise, Ducrot experiments with known motifs in a complex layering of sewn, sketched and painted materials with block printed paper. Central to Ducrot’s practice is the pursuit of truth, extracts of written words are treated as precious fragments of fabric and stitched together to weave a narrative. Each unique composition reveals inner life with a decorative border – a window or door to an interior world – employed as an arched framing device reminiscent of Persian tapestries. Handwritten elements pay homage to Ducrot’s late husband, whose philosophical ruminations detail their collection of Indian miniatures. Diary entries are scanned, printed and centred, other clippings become textured vases and Ducrot’s own exclamations are enlarged to be utilised as signifiers, interrupting the scenes of domesticity. Text and fabric, as vehicles for meaning in their own right, are combined, exemplifying how Ducrot fearlessly imbues her art with sentiment.