MARTA KUCSORA

„Modern aesthetics is crippled by its dependence upon the concept of ‘beauty.’ As if art were‘about’ beauty—as science is ‘about’ truth! Art is a form of consciousness.” Susan Sontag

I consider my artistic work as a self-reflective interrogation of traditional easel painting. I believe in the enduring importance of the painterly canon, the changes of meaning associated with formal evolution, the symbolic overtones of the gestures, and the visionary aspects of abstract art. My canvases conjure up the liberating energies, the vitalizing potentials of the ordinary environment. I consider them as frozen snap-shots of the ever-changing hidden structures of our planetary dimension, a cosmic space that exists beyond our senses and part of a realm that I like to term “metaverse”. My compositions are evoking the invisible processes of nature, the accidental, ambiguous and undisclosed aspects of our surroundings. I try to suggest the unpredictable and astounding relationships of interacting forms. I have a biocentric approach in art, my working method is analogous to the organic form process in nature, the perpetual model for every living creatures. What I want to bring into focus are the rhythmical repetition and the interrupted discontinuity of some organic formations, the peculiar fabric of the calculable and the chimerical coherence of forces. My paintings are statements of the continuously recurring, entropic circuit between myself and the world around me, a self-maintaining chemistry woven from the eternally changing patterns of organic structures and inorganic elements.

I have an inner necessity to paint as I want to capture the regular and irregular patterns of my
own existence, the conditional, but not absolute reality of events, things and actions that are
happening or unfolding around me. My paintings are illustrations of a latent genetic code that
exists deep down in nature. An invisible and subconscious algorithm that I decrypt and bring into existence with a technique similar to automatic writing. I am searching for the determination of the aleatory and I am trying to reveal the hidden logic of randomness during a consciously arranged and purposely planned action. The dynamism of my compositions manifested in the theatricality of my working process. I am interested in the somatic dimension of painting, the creative act of production, the stunning results of the self-governing reverberation of color interactions and the seemingly systemless flow of the rich colors. Adumbration is absent from my dictionary. I refrain from preliminary sketches, however I put a strong emphasis on the choreographed arrangement, the practice of certain movements, the self-engineered maneuvers in my working technique.

I have an unwavering enthusiasm of the Bergsonian time, the sensomotoric actions of creation. I am pursuing the incomplete temporality of the consciousness, the sequentiality of the subjective experience, the mobility of existence. My works represent the overlapped moments of the cyclical growth and the unfolding patterns of the transient time—a chain of suggestive, but intellectual images projected on the top of each other. I feel always encouraged when I stumble upon artists who are trying to exhaust the inner possibilities of a compositional idea, the endless variations of Josef Albers’s colored square paintings, the media independent experiments with the same subject in the art of László Moholy-Nagy and the systematic data visualizations in my contemporary, Refik Anadol’s visual aesthetic. I feel inspired by the meditative nature of seriality, the tranquility of subtle differences and the harmonious rhythm of interlocking frames.
My sentiment about temporality has its analogies in Isaac Julien’s multichannel installations,
which are poetically reflecting on the continual flow of time and also in the captivating slowmotion videos created by Bill Viola.

 

I see the agency of my paintings in the body immersive presentation of the medium that has
grown to include beyond the materiality of paint, a critical revision of the associations tie to
paintings, complex histories, theoretical frameworks and practices. I wonder if a composition
could be best defined as a space where the interplay between individuals and the drama of the
social is staged. I admit that painting serves up a revealing image of the artist who made them.
But while the Abstract Expressionist lyric has been treated as the expression of the introspective self’s interiority, my approach doesn’t only glorify the subjectivity, it also holds a visual correspondence to experiences of the contemporary world. I repeatedly ask myself whether the enormous scale of my canvases, often surpass life-size, and the vigorous, power-laden traces of my aesthetic interventions necessitate in any a priori classification related to the gender behind them. My expressionist-inflected style has always been identified with male artists, but I am convinced that this unilateral tendency doesn’t have any justification whatsoever. I strongly believe that the hardship to paint, the audacity of experimentation and the immense formats I choose shouldn’t be automatically associated with masculinity. The critical aspects related to sex are not directly coded in my work. But I try to make an allusion to the fact that rich intimacy and heroism are not exclusive terms. In fact the artistic criteria of value could be deduced from female virtue, and the magnitude of the work is irrelevant from any aesthetic judgement. The gender-centric pigeonholes are misleading and are the results of irrelevant interpretations. To my mind female artists can also act as sensitive seismographs of our society and as such they have the same competence and authority than men to transpose their visceral instincts to a tactile medium that needs to be activated and controlled by a tireless human body.

With this thinking I am one with some of the woman artists I’ve been mesmerized by their stature—Annie Albers, Perle Fine, Hilma af Klint, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Corinne Michelle West. I hold them as my forebears, because they had either a radical approach to non-figuration or a certain proclivity to accentuate the physical boundaries of the painted canvas and they looked at their own work as cartographic charts of their bodily expression and corporeal labor. I consider myself a woman artist who is working alone, independently. The signature attitude of my art relies on the individual, solitary aspect as I intentionally distantiate myself from large studios that are aided by an army of assistants. Their “product” possesses a vulnerable genetic and questionable value. My brainchild has only one mother. I don’t work for commissions, and I can’t repeat any of my former compositions.

       In my own practice painting is understood as a discrete entity, exhibiting unfathomable depths, suggesting an infinite psychological and physical space. This is why the evolution of my paintings, their progression from the genesis to their completion has an essential importance. My creative work is similar to the efforts of the alchemist who tries to reveal a mysterious secrecy.
While my studio can be easily associated with a laboratory, I can’t afford to have timeconsuming experimentation that a scientist would pursue. An analogy with an operating room is more appropriate—I have to work quick and efficiently to avoid the paint to dry up in my pictures. I am using a thin paint which enables me to apply intricate, layered textures to my canvases. My primary paints are bright, fiery and saturated direct colors that are serving as the underlying structure along with a special type of gel. They are complemented with the use of the spray gun technique that provides an additional strata accentuating the darker tones of the surface. This also adds an illusory depth to my compositions, a planar-bound plasticity recalling the imaginary flesh and blood of my creatures. I put a strong emphasis on the viscosity of the paint, I like to experiment with new synthetic materials and I am interested in the chemical and physical features of the various amalgam of the pigments, the possibilities of extenders and retarders and the behavior of different substances mixed together. I blend the colors to each other by tilting the canvas on the floor to various angles generating lava-like formations and biomorphic shapes, evoking the vegetation of a surrealist landscape. The inextricably enmeshed fabric of the surface is further elaborated by some convoluted, expressive, calligraphic lines that are normally produced by dripping and splashing of the paint. They are there to counterbalance the cloud-like patterns that unequally fill out the entire frame. They also meant to steer the viewer’s perception in this immersive, floating universe that I bring about in my compositions.

 

         A meaningful characteristic of my paintings is the absence of the brushwork. My all-embracing physical presence, my fierce, but coordinated gestures, the spontaneity of the swinging movement of my arm and the subtle balances of my postures are responsible for the treatment. I deliberately avoid expressing my emotions while painting as my work requires a focused concentration, an intuitive, but logic-driven guidance of my mind. Painting is an intimate, personal business to me, a staged performance, which is created by a series of happenstances, where there are no small edits, only one single opportunity I just can’t afford to commit any mistakes while performing it.
       I want to be described as somebody who adapts a new age mysticism in her work, an artist who looks into the bottom of the aesthetic investment that abstraction can offer. An artist who can employ the spiritual conduits of her gestural expression, the manual imprints in a world that espouse the inorganic movement, the inhuman energy and celebrating the deluge of the
impassive and mechanical reproductions. I strongly believe that my paintings can bring back
some moments that were faded away in our dull and corroded life. I refer to them as ornaments of a new existentialism. They can help us to activate our sensory experiences, augment the capabilities of our creative imagination. I am also convinced that ultimately they can bring back the lost pageantry of nature that is so indispensable to our blithely life.