The Space Gallery shows a 15 year period of Kiss Márta’s art.
The title of the exhibition refers to a painting made in 2008 with a hint of irony.
The previous large sized old painting is a full body self-portrait: during the time I paint I splash some paint on the canvas which is already decorated with abstract elements. The name of the painting is ‘Finally I paint some big abstract’. I gave that name for the painting to make a contrast against the chiseled, perspective-based paintings because like this I could paint a large size abstract painting.
Since the beginning my art was based on tradition, perspective and technique. On the other hand I was always trying to find the opportunities to renew my current art. Some years ago I started to be interested in embroidery. It gave me many new ways to express myself, it’s a new tool which showed me things which I can not see with my own eyes. Like this the perspective based figurative art got added with a new dimension. You can see the first embroidered paintings at the gallery and you can follow a journey about my new experiences.
A year ago I started to have allergic reactions when I was painting with oil and other chemicals so I had to stop using them. This was a complete turnaround in my life and in my art too. It was really painful to let this way of expressing myself go but I still had so many pictures inside my head which I could make visible with the new techniques I learned during the process. This new opportunity of using embroidery started to be my main focus because there was a time when I could only use colorful cardboards and crewel.
This journey was transformative all the way around. It was shocking how the visual can be connected to a certain technique. Before all of this happened I used to work with oil and this really identifies my whole way of expressing myself. I had to realize that I need to change all of my visions about visualization and this was actually a relief to me.
I feel like I really had to grief this separation from oil but my curiosity led me to new fields.
In the beginning I was trying to stick with my old method, I was painting with tempera then I combined it with embroidery. Then I was thinking what If I let my figurative elements go and focus only on symbols, patterns and the power of colors.
Like this I created the ‘Spheres’ series where the main symbol was the ring,patterns around and with that I was trying to express the psychic and consciousness states.
You will also find some oil paintings which are the reminders of my old figurative style I was painting during Covid and it foreshadows the depth which brought a transformative time to everyone’s life.
Talking of transformation: we use this word to change something but if we dig into the word itself it is trans+form which gives an opportunity to get deeper over the form.
It was an interesting idea what if I leave the form itself. I invite you to join me through this journey.

Márta Kiss

The exhibition was supported by the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.