This work is part of Isabelle de Kleine’s solo exhibition World Was on Fire.

Says Isabelle of her work: “Nestled between spinifex-covered hills, the iron cliffs and waters below, lies the forgotten home. This work explores the feeling of driving through the ghost town of Wittenoom and surrounding landscape. The reverence felt for a once thriving town, built in hope and prosperity, now lost to memory. Wiped from the maps, it elicits a somber awe for both the grandeur of its beauty and its ultimate tragedy.

“My body of work comprises a series of mixed media watercolour paintings that explore the complexities, struggles and richness of human experience. The works speak of the dualities of love and loss, light and dark, the web of experience that weaves together the beautiful and flawed tapestry of ourselves.

“The figures depicted are envoys of my contemplations on identity and the psyche. When realisation comes that our reality is fabrication, when we understand the fallibility of ourselves and the falsities we have created; what remains? Who do we become? The works depict the liminal space that we occupy when we are left in loss, and the reconstruction of self that occurs in the wake of grief.”