November 6, 2024 - December 18, 2024
In European culture, symmetry derives from the Greek words syn and metreo, meaning the right proportion of things. Over time, however, different disciplines have added myriad meanings to the concept, expanding its range of interpretations. While the term generally refers to regularity and harmony, it is most commonly associated with proportion and rhythm in art.
Luca Sára RÓZSA's solo exhibition Symmetries at VILTIN Gallery is both an interpersonal retrospective of the beginning of her career and a duo exhibition. Alongside her emblematic paintings and small, intimate indigo drawings, the silk paintings of her grandmother are also on display. The artist's long-standing desire is being fulfilled, and she is exhibiting in the same space with her greatest supporter, who has always been an essential source of inspiration. RÓZSA's works reflect on their relationship and the parallels and symmetries of their destinies. The different zeitgeists played a decisive role in becoming or not becoming artists. The exhibition tells the story of the dilemmas, cycles, and amplitudes of the two women's paths in life that reflect each other.
Luca Sára RÓZSA's large-scale canvases explore the interconnections between the individual and the environment. Instead of clothes, the prominent amorphous figures in her paintings are wrapped in timelessness, seeking their place in the world in a paradise-like natural environment. Iconographic models and painterly traditions have always played an essential role in RÓZSA's works. Still, she has moved away from classical depictions of man, and instead of specific fates and figures, she speaks generally about human situations, questions, and destinies. Besides the gesture of abstraction, she facilitates this dialogue with the viewer and herself by impersonalizing her figures. A recurring feature of her work is the emphasis on the duality of past and present, which is revealed in the exhibition in the life of the two female artists, as RÓZSA's earliest inspirations are enumerated. In addition to the general philosophical context, the relationship between man and their environment is now supplemented by a subjective layer thanks to the personal story.
The phenomenon of reflection is visually significant in the images of the exhibition. In addition to its symbolic role, the water mirror in the paintings simultaneously connects, separates, reveals, distorts, refracts, and smoothes. We see ourselves in it, constantly changing, always different. At the same time, the indigo drawings show the shifting of the medium, so the distorting gesture of reflection becomes apparent in the material. Memory, the image of the self as seen and created, and the distortion are all given equal weight in the displayed works, evoking collective and reconstructive memory.