Illusion and Identity

 

Budapest based artist Marta Kucsora has been exhibiting her paintings throughout Europe and overseas since the early 2000s. Many significant private and public collections had acquired large scale pieces by Kucsora. Over recent years, she has developed a unique, abstract type of (flow) painting.

 

Márta Kucsora disrupts the traditional structure of figurative panel landscapes by integrating, in addition to the illusiory imitation principle – playing the role of an equally treasured element – the component – the trail effect which is derived from the peculiar charateristics of painting materials; these can be directed, guided, yet still be able to retain a sense of spontaneity. This is how the special confluence can take place where the techniques of dripping and flow not only represent the essential quality of the solution, but rather indirectly display it as well. This directness, however, is not merely an optical phenomenon: the work bears more than the signs of movement, of an inarticulate, undefined action, of possibilities without form within a fluid; it simply bears this imprint of this essence upon itself, and this moment – without conscious effort to do so – transfers this manner of painting into a realm that is transcendent of its origins.

 

The results are particularly provocative; they do not pay homage to the conventional processes of the profession; we might even say that they replace them completely, yet at the same time can be decoded without delay, their subject matter remains clearly recognizable, meaning that they returns to the figurative convention. Due to its reinforced dynamism, this method appears quick and simple; to avoid violating the principle of imitation, however, a decisive proportion of coincidences must be avoided via the precise designation of the ratio of solvent, drying agent and pigment, by chancing upon the perfect quantity to be applied, by the diffiult movement of the host surface and in the case of additional layers to be applied between drying periods, the careful management of the processes, lasting multiple days.

 

Consequently, Márta Kucsora’s art may be safely classified as unique, as this duality is rarely characteristic of artists in the Flow Art Movement as it is defined by Peter Frank (This is most clearly expressed in the Visio series of 2011). For example, Susan Woodruff – a personal acquintance of Kucsora -  who also independently developed the technique, leaves the fields of association of her paintings much less specific. On the large scale canvasses of Andy Moses, the instantly recognized identity of the material’s imprint and the simultaneous existence of illusionism is displayed as a similar pairing.

 

For Kucsora, the medium of water is alien of our human natures; yet, at the same time, it is symbolic and charged with a spiritual force, just as it is in the art of Bill Viola. This is the reason why she does not divorce her paintings from the subject matter; our encounters with these paintings translate into a transcendent experience of shifting into this alien medium. Occassionally this shift is the subject matter of the paintings; we do not see this as a figurative picture. We only experience it visually as an imprint: a body getting immersed into water is only depicted by virtue of the bubbles and whirlpools it generates. (The Big Jump, 2010). The direct visual expression of this spiritual content is embodied by the Flumen (2005–2006) and the Emanatio (2008–2009) series, as well as Lux (2010–2011), where Márta Kucsora strays furthest from the principle of imitation.

 

The Fluctus (2007-2009) and the Mare Maris (2009-2011) series honors the vast, awe-inspiring power of water in a nearly polytheistic way, to an extent taking a stance against technocracy, just like the Endangered Waters piece of Olafur Eliasson, where the primary point of reference is dedication to environmentalism. We can identify the quasy-landscapes of underwater worlds as the metaphors of the soul; these express the meditative, calming aspects of the medium of water (Fluidum 2011, Fluctuatio 2006–2007). In contrast, the disruptive, potentially destructive aspect of the unstoppable force also does not remain hidden in the Eiectio (2007–2008) and the Aqua (2006–2008) series.

 

In a somewhat broader context, the art of Márta Kucsora may be associated with that of Herbert Brandl. They share the trait that they express general cconceptial relativism through the device of confronting the conventions of landcape and gesture painting. The deconstructionist fervor of Brandl, turned against the painting itself at times, is only expressed by Kucsora versus the implements of the painter and is more of a tool of Viola-style catharsys.

 

Endre Lehel Paksi, 2011.