Ilona Langbroek’s personal series Silent Loss is based on her family’s history in the former Dutch East Indies. The Netherlands has a long history with the Dutch East Indies, which leave all kinds of traces that are reminiscent of the vast but also complex colonial past between these two countries. In fact, her work is about the lost identity of the large number of people who were forced to leave their country after the Independence and their emotions regarding this loss which are dormant but still very much alive.
Her artwork is not just about aesthetics, but there is a deeper meaning behind the image, the story and the emotion contained within. From that point of view, Langbroek shoots purely intuitively based upon her memories of her grandmother: how she looked, her accent and tone of her voice. In addition, research is an important part of the work to find inspiration. By studying books, interviewing people from previous generations and scrutinizing old photo albums, Langbroek gets closer to the life of her grandparents in the Dutch East Indies. Furthermore, her ideas are refined and elaborated in detail, in search of the right items, models, locations and clothing which are partly original antiques but were also specifically handmade based on her own ideas and design.
In her contemporary work she has therefore chosen to express this atmosphere of nostalgia and sadness, but also of poetry and beauty. Using a strong contrast between light and dark, the artist creates a twilight zone as a metaphor for the disappearing past. To achieve this, she uses chiaroscuro, but also the soft lighting used by painters of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age, such as Vermeer, Rembrandt or the Italian painter Caravaggio.
In 2021, Bildhalle presented her first solo show Terra Incognita in Amsterdam. In 2022, Langbroek was part of the duo show Traces in the Museum Hilversum. Her work has been widley exhibited at international art fairs such as Paris Photo, Photo London, Unseen, Photo Basel and PAN Amsterdam. Bildhalle will dedicate two major solo exhibitions to her in Amsterdam and Zurich in 2023 and 2024. A book publication is planned for 2024.