Kókay Krisztina (Esztergom, 2005)
The Mountain Kókay keeps on drawing mountains, towers, walls, vaults and garden vegetation full of leaves with soaring faith. Her drawings are composed of rich and exuberant architectural structures and vegetation. The intricate series of her mountains recall the natural and artificial mountains of advanced cultures (The Pyramids and Ziggurats - 7 and 9 story pagan constructions). The mountain stands for the center of the universe and also that of great empires. According to Saint John The Crusader, the mystical way of life and man's quest to know God correspond to mountain climbing. In psychoanalysis the psychoanalyst shows the patient the way, just like a mountain guide. The mountain also exerts power and is a cultic (holy) place of pilgrimage. Moreover, the conquest of the world departs from that point. The Tower and the Bell The tower can be associated with the Tower of Babel, God's gate and the lighthouse of a Heavenly Harbor. In Christian iconography it is depicted as colossal, unfinished, crumbling - on the point of collapse, usually with a spiral staircase. Kokay's tower is insecure, frail and monumental at the same time. While the bell and the tower are considered to possess masculine attributes (in Freud's interpretation the tower is the most obvious phallic symbol), in ancient cultures they are archetypes of the female. Among towers, it is the ivory tower that has never been seen. The bell, referring to the woman because of its emptiness, is a sacred object hanging between earth and heaven and provides a passage between the two. In addition, it is the guardian of belief. The Wall The wall is a vertical architectural element, bordering and dividing spaces and capable of carrying weight. Town walls were built for defense. The Church Wall, the Sanctuary, the hall where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, and the Garden of Joys are all sacred structures and buildings. Human organs and blood vessels are also bordered by walls. Kókay's mosaic firmaments and her brick archways evoke the ornaments of ancient cultures. The old methods of bricklaying and stonewall building, the archaic way of mosaic laying and the roughness of monastery walls all appear in the drawings next to the geometry of organic and anatomical wall-mazes and parts of the human body. PALÁST III. • MANTLE III. • 1999 papír, tollrajz • paper, ink • 19x34 cm The Garden The garden symbolizes primordial innocence and nature conquered, upon which order was imposed. It can allude to the Elysian fields, the island of the happy or the unbuilt part of the Heavenly Jerusalem. The rich garden is credited as being the birthplace of earthly love, the Fall and the Rapture. It can be calm and wild at the same time, often referring to an esoteric and endless maze, a symbol of the harmony between man and woman. "There is no such noble tree or bush. No wood can give such foliage and flowers" (GOOD-FRIDAY LITURGY). PALAST I. • MANTLE I. ■ 1999 papír, tollrajz • paper, ink • 19x33,5 cm PALÁST IV. ■ MANTLE IV. • 1999 papír, tollrajz • paper, ink • 19X34 cm
