​Isabella Mack, born 1992, is a young and promising Australian artist. Having completed a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art at R.M.I.T., Isabella is now focused on continuing with a committed studio practice in Los Angeles. 

She has hosted several successful solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and the US including her most notable show at the prestigious Graham Geddes Gallery (Melbourne, Victoria). The exhibition titled Light & Dark featured 19 of her oversized pieces spanning throughout 5 rooms of the gallery and generating the most press her emerging career had yet experienced. Isabella’s most recent solo exhibition titled SHE focused on the representation of women in art and media, the female gaze, and the intimacies of womanhood in the 21st Century. 10% of the proceeds were donated to Planned Parenthood and The National Immigration Law Center.

 

Isabella is a mixed media artist creating large-scale figurative drawings. While some of her drawings take on a classical portrayal of body gleaning inspiration from the life room, others are abstracted and show an alternative representation of body. 

Many of Mack’s figurative drawings, especially those in her series of body prints portray drawing as a performance in itself. This process of drawing as a performance not only examines the experience of body, the experience of drawing itself and the relationship between the two, but also presents the issue of perception. Many drawings are made on the floor and are then hung up on a studio/gallery wall to be viewed. This transition from the horizontality of the choreographic act/gesture, (or) plane of kinetic energy, to the vertical object of contemplation ie examination in the studio/gallery is a prominent topic of investigation that emerges in Mack’s studio practice and theory research.

 

Mack’s drawings often look different depending on where you are in the room, engaging you in a deeper contemplation and experience of the body, and a deeper experience of “looking”. Each piece is highly personal, vulnerable, meditative, self-reflective and emotionally charged. The drawings convey the sexual and kinetic energy that bodies posses inherently. Mack’s investigation into the figure and into female sensuality goes on to include research and development into the theory of touch and its relationship to art and the figure. While vision has been championed as the most important sense, touch plays arguably the biggest role in sensuality. Mack’s blindfolded performance drawings explore the idea of intimate perception and prioritise touch over vision as a deeper look into the body and its tangible presence. 

Mack explores the controversial charge or separating the definitions between “pornography” and “erotic art” as well as women's rights, human rights, objectification, sexualisation vs sexual freedom, gender norms and the female gaze. Her drawings Illustrate the journey of navigating womanhood in the constantly developing landscape of modern feminism. Mack’s work is an exploration of the parameters of authenticity in a heavily commercialised world and presents femininity and the female gaze as a rebellion against societal expectations of women and outdated notions of gender norms.