ARTIST STATEMENT

My works are systems of personal, surreal and metaphor-filled experiences and
memories. Abstract paintings – infused with figural moments and symbols – evoking the
atmosphere of nostalgic and romantic longing, which is shaped by my roots of Eastern
Europe and by my experiences of a Slovakian-Hungarian ambivalent existence. In my
artistic practice the tension between a nomad existence and home, time, remembrance
and absurd situations all play an important role.

The focus of my works lies on the collage, which becomes technologically and in a wider
sense artistically philosophic through the principals of option and selection. Within
collage I work with three media: in the form of paper, canvas and installation. In all three
cases I turn the existing pieces of my images into new compositions with a sort of zero
waste method. My small scale paper works are usually forerunners or studies of my
paintings, which are created with the methods of de-collage, tearing and covering. On
the surfaces the layers create playful plane-space islands. I use the visually illusory
technique of Trompe-l’œil, where the hues and gradient have a paramount role in
emphasizing the depth of the paintings’ surface. 

My work is inspired by the forms of late modernism and the traditions of neoavant-garde.
The repetitive usage of my tool of forms and elements produce a great variety of
combinations, recalling the playful ethos of Dadaism. I handle the canvas as an organic
component, in the first phase of the work I crease, iron or fold it as a textile, and if it is not
stretched onto the frame then the parts are sewed together and used as part of an
installation. By opening up the boundaries of the image plane, I expand my usage of
materials into the space with textile, paper, carpet or wood elements. I create site-specific
situations, where the tension between painterly elements, the different materials and the
thematic is the focus of my interest. (for example my „schMERZbild“ series inspired by
Kurt Schwitters)

Rita Koszorus
2023