Intricate paper costumes fool the eye
A princess seems to be looking at herself in the mirror of an old painting (ca. 1610) as one enters a show in Oklahoma City.
The “Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper” exhibit is at Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.
Holding a fan like the subject of the Peter Paul Rubens oil, the mannequin-princess in the red paper dress seems almost alive, with a story to tell.
Telling us some of it is a gallery note saying that the recently married young princess “fled to Brussels to escape” a French king’s unwanted advances.
De Borchgrave, born in 1946, is a Belgian artist, painter and sculptor, best known for her intricate tromp l’oeil (fool-the-eye) paper costumes.
In the show’s Medici section, a mannequin in a flowery paper dress represents a pregnant Flora, goddess of spring, from Sandro Botticelli’s “Primavera.”
Needing no mannequin is another eye-catching paper version of an elaborate gown worn by Queen Elizabeth I, whom “no one outshined,” or could outshine.
Dazzling us, too, are two paper dresses like those worn by a French king’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, plus a startling double-wide dress, called a “Mantua.”
Elegant, yet more modern are the black-andwhite patterns of a gown from the House of Worth, whose founder, dubbed the “father of haute couture,” died in 1895.
High fashion and “freer silhouettes” also flourish in de Borchgrave’s renditions of dresses designed by John Redfern and Jeanne Lanvin.
A poster by Alphonse Mucha inspired the artist’s version of a long, Art Nouveau-influenced dress, in rich colors, that Sarah Bernhardt wore in the play, “Gismonda.”
Superbly simple and flowing is her paper recreation of a delicate pink, green and yellow “Delphos Dress and Coat,” designed by Venice-based Spanish artist Mariano Fortuny.
Wonderfully exotic are her versions of “Les Ballet Russes” artist costumes, such as Natalia Goncharova’s “Sea Horse,” and Mikhail Larionov’s “Paysanne” (or country girl).
Stark black on white triangles decorate a “Mourner” costume by Henri Matisse, while the arms and legs of a ball guest turn into bricks and pillars, in a costume by Giorgio de Chirico.
The exhibit ends with her paper versions of a Belgian collector’s “Silk Road” kaftans, splashing the walls with their bright patterns and rich colors.
De Borchgrave qualifies that “she is an artist, not a fashion designer, and that the (paper) sculptures are not copies of the originals, but her artistic impression” of them.
Organized by OKCMOA, with several other museums, the retrospective show is highly recommended in its run through Sept. 9.