Isabel Brunger
Instagram: @siamxkat
Email: Isabel@brunger.co.uk
From a glistening alphabet to bumbling puppets, the works of Isabel Brunger portray themes of hope and propaganda, within the realm of a utopia. She creates a perfect, polychromatic world, dispersed in glitter and glory, through a multidisciplinary practice that includes sculpture, painting and film, within the realm of ceramics and puppets. For example, in her most recent installation, she combines the three to propel an immersive, awe-striking world. Encircling the viewer from all angles, it is designed as an idealistic paradise, where everything is perfect, and where nothing could ever be wrong.
Transporting the audience into an ethereal world of euphoria and eternal good, Brunger wants each visitor to feel at peace and forget all the bad in the world. To be able to escape from reality, though its sculptural menagerie, fantastical, glittery madness and psychologically calming colours. And yet, this world fails the same way others have failed before. A hidden dystopia lurks below, secretly controlling it all. Now, its role is to question Thomas More’s philosophy, the role of a utopia and its morality, leaving the viewer to question their own world. By mirroring reality’s façade of greatness and its grandiose illusions of superiority it becomes a social criticism to the falsified media and misinformation we are subjected to on a day-to-day basis.
Meet the Characters:
Pierre
Foam, fleece, organza, pompoms
2024
Elysia
Foam, blanket, rhinestones
2025
Uptopia Advert
2025
Moving image
2 minutes 8 seconds
Utopia is a place synonymous with perfection, peace and paradise; a place where anyone can escape from the struggles of reality. This advert is designed to pull you in through comical puppets and superficial innocence, accentuated by glitter, primary shapes and pastel colours. However, this hyperbolic representation is underpinned by morse code beeping out the truth and didactic messaging. Parodies of famous propaganda poster, like Flagg’s I want you for the US Army and Babichenko’s Be Ready For the Defence of the USSR, repositions Utopia as a façade, and delivers the message that you as the spectator, are being systematically told what to feel. Suddenly, Utopia has been twisted into a manipulative tool and has become its dystopic opposite. This narrative references obligated pride and can be an allusion towards governmental campaigns. It creates the question: is the role of a utopia to conceal a dystopia?