An interview with artist Ilona Szwarc about her current solo, "Virgin Soap."
Polish-born, Los Angeles-based artist Ilona Szwarc’s Virgin Soap is on view through October 16 at Diane Rosenstein Gallery in Los Angeles. Working in photography, sculpture, and performance, Szwarc’s works engage with an unconventional self-portraiture, as exemplified in Virgin Soap, as well as previous works Unsex me here and Some women can take their eyes out. In Unsex me here, her doppelgänger goes through a dramatic, anthropomorphic transformation. In Some women can take their eyes out, Szwarc photographs her reflections in models’ bloodshot eyes as a tear builds along their waterlines. There is something to be said about the gaze. Is this the female gaze? The artist as the subject? A resistance within a medium classically dominated by men and their perceptions? It could be all of those, but in Virgin Soap, it’s something more direct, more demanding of the viewer, more tense. [...]
October 7, 2021
