KINGDOM
MÁRTA RADICS
The exhibition displays attributes of an imaginary kingdom. The blurred fortresses, crowns and gates show the clouds and waves of water that are riding over the kingdom… The ruins of this ancient world have a profound effect on me, and they send humankind back through ages with their dignified balance. The ruins of the past surround our everyday life and radiate perfection in their own inadequacy. The elements in this space have such an effect on us that they help us remember, either consciously or subconsciously. Remembrance often appears in the form of a mood and feeling. The weather-stricken elements of rocks, castles and columns can start a story that can create a relationship between soul and substance.
My subject’s technical and content duality can be visually presented by using the elements of the landscape (earth, sky, water, trees…). My artistic role is examining a range of questions. Can the relationship between natural and man-made artificial materials be discovered, perhaps understood, and simultaneously analysed in terms of differences? Can humankind fully possess nature on its own rules? Materials, elements and organisms in nature come from small building blocks. When I construct my art, I build a type of geometric element. As an innovative and exciting experiment, I intentionally build the blocks in a certain order and let the surface form spontaneously and unpredictably. The depth and texture of the surface can function as a stand-alone form. With the surface ’disruption’ of the regular bricks, I achieve an exciting play. Deeper surface formations can play a form-shaping role. Regularity and predictability, which is shaping the geometric bodies, passes through flaw and randomness, which turns them to the apparent nature of natural grain. With this technique, I can playfully combine the properties, colour, form and spatial structure of the elemental components of nature, coupled with human emotions and thoughts.
The building stones of the works were made with casting techniques, replicating the same element. There are, however, no two identical shapes between the elements. My reference point is the visual expression of the passage of time.
ABOUT ME:
I graduated from the Ceramics Faculty of the Hungarian University of Applied Arts in Budapest. In the following years, I lived in Sweden with my family where I had the opportunity to work in a workshop in Röback with the “Forma” ceramic group. Later I lived in Austria, where drawing and porcelain design played a significant role in my everyday life. Lately I moved to Hungary, since then I teach in art school. My teacher degree was acquired at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. Besides art education, I continue my creative work, which I present at exhibitions. I am a member of the Hungarian Association of Creative Artists and the Association of Hungarian Fine Arts and Applied Artists.
Through my work, I strive to express the duality that determines the attitude of man to life. The question is whether it can be discovered, understood in terms of the relationship between soul and substance, and seen as differences in parallel. I believe that in the depths of our consciousness, the first presence is the sacred memory that determines the essence and meaning of our existence. In my work, this is represented by light forms against contrasting dark masses of ‘monumental stones’.
