Isabelle Borges’ exhibition title Forking paths – is based on the short story The garden of forking paths by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story is about the infinite realities that open up when people are faced with decisions and the non-linear aspect of time and space.

Analogously, Isabelle Borges refers to the numerous decisions she has to make as an artist when she chooses a particular painting. Before she begins to paint, she photographs natural structures of plants reflected in a particular lake in Brandenburg, which she visits regularly. She transfers the lines, surfaces and spaces she observes there, which are formed by the reeds in the lake, into her paintings as abstract elements. Her paintings are non-representational and radiate an enchanting lightness, despite their geometric rigor. They invite the viewer to move their gaze in a shared imaginary space. Isabelle Borges therein concerns herself with the process of deceleration and the perception of color, line and space.

The color surfaces are painted in many layers to create an enormous depth. Lines also change their straight course again and again, bend, cross each other, sometimes widen or taper and become hair-thin.

Isabelle Borges, born 1966 in Salvador, Brazil, lives and works in Berlin and Rotterdam and studied fine art at the art academies in Rio de Janeiro and Düsseldorf. In Brazil, she has had solo exhibitions at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture Mube, São Paulo (2013) and the Museum of the Republic, Rio de Janeiro (2000). As part of the 14th International Curitiba Biennial, she exhibited in a large hall at the Museum Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba (2019/2020) and most recently at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Salvador (2022). The artist realized a wall painting with installation at the Mies van der Rohe Haus in Berlin (2021) and had a solo show at the Till Richter Museum in Buggenhagen (2021). In 2022 she presented new prints at the Kunstverein Meißen (2022). In 2025, Isabelle Borges will exhibit at the Kunstmuseum Ahlen and as part of the Capital of Culture 2025 Chemnitz.

The artist’s works are represented in institutional and private collections in Brazil as well as in Europe.