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Did you know chocolate releases the same hormones as love? A local painter has explained how the chemical crossover inspired her most recent body of work, as she revealed her creative process.
Born into a family with “a creative mentality,” Ilsa Capper started painting from a young age. “I probably started when I was five or six with detailed drawings with pens,” she recalled. “A teacher loaned me some Rotring pens to draw and that was it I was just hooked nothing ever changed after that.”
Another gift spurred her creativity on.
At the age of nine, Ilsa received a book of canvas paper and a painting knife, which she used to create her first still life pictures.
Pictured: Layers of watered-down oil paint.
“I loved the texture and the colour,” she said. “It felt like a language I could just connect with.”
The aspiring artist went on to Central St. Martin’s and Chelsea School of Art, studying fine art and illustration.
Throughout, she carried her love of texture and colour. Her most recent exhibition - ‘Heart of the Forest’ – featured a series of paintings in green, yellow, blue, and pink layers, inspired by cocoa forests.
Like Ilsa’s other series, it all started with an idea – seeing people buying chocolates for Valentine’s Day – followed by some research, during which Ilsa discovered chocolate releases the same chemicals as love. This gave her a “route” into a body of work.
Pictured: "I will do charcoal drawings and from those the painting evolves.”
“I can only do a body of work when I feel inspired by different ideas,” Ilsa explained.
“I read articles, look at images and then I start with a series of sketches in my sketchbook. I will do charcoal drawings and from those the painting evolves.”
The painting process, Ilsa says, goes with a “certain nervousness”.
Starting from canvasses she makes herself, Ilsa builds up layers of watered-down oil paint.
Pictured: Ilsa at work.
“It becomes harder as the process goes,” Ilsa said. “It starts a lot freer, more natural and it gets more and more intense as I get near the end."
"The hardest part is when I do the final layer. The brush is loaded with the colours and it could take me an hour because when I put that layer, I have to feel entirely confident.
“I literally have to leave the studio and go for a walk around town and regain the confidence to actually do this.”
Despite the nervousness, Ilsa would not dream of giving painting up.
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“When it’s great, it’s such a joy to be creating and making something,” she said.
“But when it’s wrong, it’s nightmarish, it will not leave your head like a problem until it’s fixed. You know that if you stick with it, it will work out. Sometimes a new depth of understanding comes from the mistakes.”
Ilsa is currently experimenting with drawing and paint techniques and mixing the two together. While she doesn’t know what it will focus on yet, there is a strong chance it will involve nature.
“I do feel that it’s quite important in my work,” she said. “I think there are so many links between the way nature works and us human beings. We are starting to be more respectful towards nature and becoming more aware of everything around us.”
Pictured: "The purpose of the artist has had to change," said Ilsa.
With her new work, Ilsa will once again aim to evoke emotions.
“Art is not just the aesthetic, it’s fundamental, but you need to create a response and thought process and an emotional response through colour, shapes and ideas,” she said.
“The role of art has changed hugely in the digital age. We are bombarded with images on a daily basis. The purpose of the artist has had to change, there is more of an emphasis on creating something that makes people think.
"An artist should always create a new way of seeing.”
In pictures: In the Heart of the Forest...
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