For most of her paintings, artist Ilke Cop starts from her own image. “It is a rewarding starting point. I always have myself with me: the first person who is available to take photos of is myself.” Yet they often do not remain self-portraits. “From the moment the image is finished, they become other characters. It becomes a kind of allegory.”
“My work is not so much consciously feminist. It just comes from my worldview,” says Cop. “Everyone is pushed into a straitjacket of the patriarchy. Men are just as disadvantaged by that as women, but in different ways.”
