Kókay Krisztina (Esztergom, 2005)

It's as if Krisztina Kókay had a special sensibility for the destiny of what cannot be undone, for the fact and the law of irreversibility that haloes all existence. -1 believe simple common sense might explain the logic and motivation behind this seemingly airy statement of mine. Her works, especially the visions applied with paint on expensive silk, are created in such a way that makes correction impossible; nothing can be scraped off, which is usually a nearly equally important part of the work of a painter as applying the paint on the canvas. Because of this technical hindrance, Krisztina Kókay has to live together with and suffer the consequences of, in every single moment and movement of the process of artistic realization, the strict command of "you cannot change"; the same merciless admonition, which another poet, Weöres Sándor, a disciple of the above quoted Milán Füst by the way, phrased this way: "for what has already come to pass/cannot be changed from what it was,/either by the god or devils or any order:/ it seems to be fleeting and is eternal." - The silent drama of this lack of alternatives, of the single unrepeatable gestures of creation bestows a moral seriousness on her lines, bestows artistic credit on the actually impossible and absurd desire to attempt to take an X-ray photograph, after the bones and the flesh of the body, of the soul - of our emotions and thoughts, of the nervous paths of our yearnings.

OPENING SPEECH, CASTLE MUSEUM, ESZTERGOM, 26 MAY, 1995

EMLÉKEINK JÖVŐJE • THE FUTURE OF OUR MEMORIES • 1999

PAPÍR, TOLLRAJZ • PAPER, INK • 21X30 CM