La Nación, 'Respetar la voces interiores', Diciembre 2001

Listening to inner voices

Isabel de Laborde was born from a Mexican mother and a French father. After a childhood in Mexico, she lived in Paris where she studied at the School of Decorative Arts. As from the eighties, she lives and works in Argentina, married and with two children.

The first thing to point out in the case of Isabel is her handcraft probabilities, her talent for drawing, besides all the other techniques she masters, frequently connected to acrylics. But all this brilliant background would be of little value if she were not also in possession of a great talent and an iron will. That character that leads her to rigorously observe Braque’s dictum: Chaque artist a sa cage (each artist in his cage).   

This exhibition is composed of more than one series: the one of the rivers, the one about time, and the third one of the blood. This last one covers the surface of a  wall with not too large works in which we may see circles, in various compositions marked along lines with golden ramifications, something that subdues us for their refinement and good taste. 

In Laborde, her poetic flight is not uncomfortable, for it slightly becons an optic sensibility, lending her inspiration  all the plastic equivalence we demand from good paintings. In any case, to walk through this exhibition becomes such a balanced experience that we may think that the walls themselves have adapted to the paintings, instead of the opposite. This speaks well of the selection of the works. There is one wall with only one painting on it: the subdued colors, the unhesitating lines, tell us of a creative will that has reached the mark. (Galería Maman, Av. Del Libertador 2475, until the 31st of the month)   

Rafael Squirru