The oracle is a gatekeeper, straddling the divine and the mortal - a whisperer of secrets and a deliverer of riddles. Sphinx-like, she remains impassive and composed, her face often masked with an apparent neutrality or even indifference. She is sought for her guidance, her wisdom and her prophecies.
Ilona's paintings in this exhibition play with the idea of this fragmented, incomplete 'truth'. The more I tell you, the less you know, a series of oils on glass, explores this notion most explicitly, as we are given glimpses of a tantalising narrative which swoops in and out of focus.
Other works in the show suggest those who seek her out. Those are youthful, hopeful figures, often naked and vulnerable in their desire for knowledge.
Ilona's decision to produce all the exhibition's new works on glass stems from a desire to embody the paradox of transparency and mystery, and to 'argue' that mystery, secrecy and unknowability are as visible and unhidden as glass itself.
