ILONA SZALAY MERMAID

ILONA SZALAYMERMAID

There is an ineffable quality to the most recent work of Ilona Szalay - it demands to be experienced physically. Her characters exist in a rare dimension hanging, or oscillating, between power and vulnerability. This is truly female work, female as Nature, Gravity or Reality. Her works are elements in their own right, beautiful yet confrontational, elegant yet ruthless. Through the work the artist asks us to examine our most intense anxieties and taboos and brings to the foreground, in a literally transparent manner, the viewer’s deepest feelings and most base

sentiments.

These see-through entities, these works on glass, function as a non-reflective mirror, a confrontational frame that, rather than representing human emotion

- as art so often does - conjures it raw and naked, a human emotion captured or petrified within a sleek glass tank.

Eminent is the struggle for identity, the urge towards belonging whilst maintaining one’s individuality. The artist emphasises the vast importance of the visible in a culture of concealment and it is this violent interior struggle that is brought face to face with the viewer in the setting of Mermaid. The works look the viewer straight in the eye - they are human, obstinate, glorious, instinctual

and unavoidable.

Visually Ilona Szalay has mastered the interplay between the surface and the illusion of a presumed depth. The dynamics of power, violence, authority,

subversion and oppression are, as in life, real and prominent here, mirroring our own ineffectualities and impulses. There is a sense in the work of a secret truth

exposed, a feeling of unguarded nakedness which brings with it its own particular kind of strength and integrity.

This delicate vulnerability is reminiscent of Marc Chagall. He too was able to guide the viewer’s eye in order that they become lost in delicate and sharp lines,

protrusions, waves and curves which interact between the surface and the illusion of apparent depth.

Szalay explores - in a similar manner to Chagall - the complex world of power relationships between humans which brings with it all manner of violence,

suppression and domination. Through her own assumptions and predictions she highlights the silent ‘unwritten’ rules of our society, challenging us to posit new

questions about the status quo.

The ‘Mermaid’ exhibit by Ilona Szalay, which opens at 18:00 on Thursday 4 December 2014 in Tart Zurich, shows a diverse spectrum of current works in

glass and lightboxes. It is her first solo show in Switzerland. Born in Lebanon, Szalay has had several international exhibitions and is collaborating with Saatchi

Art.

“The dark, roiling liquidities of Szalay’s lightbox paintings are simultaneously menacing and compelling, powerfully primeval.”

Gabriel Coxhead, Time Out magazine

ILONA SZALAYIlona Szalay was born in Beirut and is now based in London. She studied at Oxford University and Byam Shaw, University of the Arts. Her work has been

exhibited at numerous galleries and art fairs world wide, including the Royal Academy in London, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, Standpoint, Transition

and Whitfield Fine Art.

In 2013 she won the Italian contemporary art prize ORA. Her work was also selected as one of six finalists for the prestigious Threadneedle Prize one of the most valuable contemporary art prizes in the UK as well as being chosen for the Barbican Arts Open Exhibition. Last year also saw her exhibit new paintings in two solo shows one in London at Rebecca Hossack Gallery ‘Owl, Boy, Gun’ and

one in Bergamo at Galleria Marelia ‘Octopus’.

This year her paintings were shown at Art 14 in London and her work was selected by Saatchi Art as one of 14 artists to invest now.

THE CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION ‘MERMAID’ OF ILONA SZALAY HAS BEEN PRINTED BY TART GALLERY ON NOVEMBER 2014.TEXTS AND CONCEPT BY MARGARITA TRISTI AND CATRINA SONDEREGGER.

Tart GalleryGotthardstrasse 54, CH – 8002 Zürich

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