Kókay Krisztina (Esztergom, 2005)
Our only dated material remain from the Arpadian age is the chasuble, known as the coronation mantle, which (according to its inscription) was made during the reign of King Stephen in 1031. This mantle is evoked in the Mantle pictures and in the travelling drapery, which was created in the millennial year and thus lends itself as an adequate form of historical commemoration. This work of art follows closely the shape of the chasuble and, except for its middle stripe, produces the effect suggestive of embroidered and grooved surfaces with the help of elongated lettering (text from the verses of the Old Hungarian Lamentation of Mary and Knights, what could be by Bálint Balassi) on both sides. As a "travelling drapery", this work represents both the journey of nearly a thousand years that the chasuble took from being a coronation mantle and a holy relic to, finally, turning into an artwork at an exhibition, and a symbolic bridge spanning the earliest and the most recent works in Hungarian textile art. The surfaces of The wall (1999) are slashed with lines and filled in with grooves, which, alternately getting closer and farther between, result in a diversity of tones. The same theme appears in a more tangible form in a version made in 2000, in which a roof-like structure closes the surface, emphasizing the reference to a wall of a house. The factures of this picture resemble even more closely the pattern of clefts in the wall, of shed plaster. Among the pictures with grooved surfaces, there are also works that can be interpreted as clarified metaphysical landscapes (e.g. A conversation that was not, 1992, hand-dyed silk), where the path-like fissures meandering in white become independent signs, vehicles of significant visual messages. Thus we might find the secrets and hidden meanings of Krisztina Kókay by reading between the lines. The concept that best describes the drawings, the ethereally floating pencil strokes of Krisztina Kókay is synesthesia of the visual arts. Her graphical illustrations are representations not only of visual phenomena, but also of sensations perceptible by our other organs of sense: breezes, fragrances, faint noises and tunes. Some of her titles indicate this directly, e.g. The smell of a lime tree (1991) and Floating (1991). Among her textiles, The sound of a piano in Hévíz Street illustrates this category. These highly sensitive drawings of light tones and muted, mostly gray, shades are perfect examples of the artistic purpose of reducing the means of expression to say more with less. Even her more colorful pastel works are characterized by the same moderation, the same breathing and sighing sensitivity. Two examples are Our old gate (2000), red-tinted, built up of slightly less meticulous grooves, but still with a vibrantly sensitive surface, and Leading to you I (2002), bluish in color and using longer lines to create an effect of a waterfall rushing down or rather the waves of a creek silently lapping the surface of the paper. Most of the drawings prepare or have a connection as regards form with a gobelin, in other cases the textile is a (usually bigger) color version of the graphical work (e.g. Do not hide! and Old garden). The other key to the secret of Krisztina Kókay's art is her freedom of passing from one method and one material to the other, which enables her to weave and unweave her threads of thought regardless of technique and still, to some extent, determined by it. These pictures, born from the persistent, very nearly ritual, creative work of putting line by line, all contain the same message. The sighs and silences of rapture and mystery. The eternal mystery of art.
