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Iluá Hauck da Silva
Born 1976
Lives and works in London, UK
www.iluahauckdasilva.com

Permeated by a strong sense of the relationship between decadence and beauty, Iluá Hauck da Silva’s work explores some
of the darkest aspects of the human condition. Drawing on her background in art history, she rethinks and subverts, with a
contemporary vision, Greek and Catholic Mythologies, and classic genres such as Vanitas and Pudica Pose.

At its core, Hauck da Silva’s practice entails investigating and interrogating existential concepts. It also offers thoughts on current
social values and the construction of history and traditions. Her sculptures are both critical of contemporary society and an
invitation for refl ection as they bridge the publicly accepted and personal attitudes towards the concepts she deals with.

Using a wealth of materials to form a complex and meticulous visual vocabulary, a reminiscence of Symbolist and Art Nouveau
discourses, Hauck da Silva’s choice of media is dictated by the concept behind her ideas, as an intrinsic visual dialogue
between matter and meaning is vital to her practice. Optical glass, metal, crystal, and leather charge her work with transgressive
connotations: as meaning unfolds, beauty, pain, pleasure, and irony crystallise.

Veins of Vanity I is an ethereal, thought-provoking piece, which offers both a contemporary take on the Vanitas theme and a
conceptual approach to life casting. The artist’s torso, cast after she had been wearing a tight-laced corset, presents indents and
scarring, which are testament to the destructiveness of vanity. Such scarring is only visible because of the distinctive property of
faultless transparency inherent to optical glass, which, in this piece, has been polished to perfection on the front, and sandblast
on the back in order to preserve minute details of the indenting on the skin. Veins of Vanity therefore articulates vanity and its'
destructive aspects through the artist's own vanity. The accentuated curved shape of the waistline functions as a signifi er for
femininity, and points to the idealisation of the feminine body in Western cultures. This piece was completed in 2006 and is part
of the body of work Minotaurs of the Mind.

Sexual repression and censorship have been infl icted in different ways over the centuries. Punishment is one of the most complex
of them, as it can be co-opted and used as a sexual practice in itself. Flagellation II provokes thoughts on this intrinsically
contradictory issue. It further addresses and questions pain as a form of redemption and the manipulative aspects of its use as a
tactic. Meticulously executed, this piece has an intricate beauty, which alludes to the opulence of ecclesiastical aesthetics; its
luxurious quality momentaneously distracts the viewer from its true purpose, the mortifi cation of the body. This piece belongs to
the body of work entitled 'In the Name of the Father?'.
ILUÁ HAUCK DA SILVA graduated from Goldsmiths' College in 2002. She has exhibited at Lacey Contemporary Gallery, UK in 2014, and with The
National Trust Sutton House, The Royal Landscape, Shoreditch Town Hall, and the West Bank Gallery amongst others, as well as having showed
internationally in Brazil. In 2014 Hauck da Silva was shortlisted for both the Smirnoff Winter Award and the Passion for Freedon Award and in 2013 was
a fi nalist of the International Aestehtica Art Prize.

Top right: Cilice I, 2010, Brass and enamel.
h: 7.5cm w: 10cm d: 10cm, Artist’s Collection.
Right: Medusa, 2012, Lead Crystal Glass.
h: 156cm w: 31cm d: 35cm, Artist’s Collection.
Far right: Veins of Vanity I, 2006, Optical Glass.
h: 40.5cm w: 30.5cm d: 20cm, Private Collection.
Next Page: Flagellation II, 2012, Brass, leather, wood and Swarovski Crystals.
h: 3cm w: 5cm d: 63cm, Artist’s Collection.

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