Kókay Krisztina (Esztergom, 2005)

The Tree, the Foliage and the Leaf

The artist's train of thought and her mosaic of memories manifested in the images of hills, towers and walls are developed into foliage with lighter touches and more intimate gestures. The overgrown foliage of walnut and lime trees provide an unusual and interlaced cover. (After The Fall, a leaf substituted for the archaic clothing). The segments of the leaves follow each other in a peculiar, endless continuum. The infinite labyrinth of the leaves engulfs the entire drawing paper and results in a drawing of a strange Maniere garden of foliage. (The Leonardo da Vinci-type labyrinth of foliage in the Sforza Castle is an overwhelming example of a seeming waterfall of foliage - Die Welt als Labyrinth - Hocke). The outstanding prince of writers who occasionally escaped to his ivory tower, writes the following in The Book of the Sand; "The pages of my book are infinite indeed. There are no first or last pages". The amount of leaves (composed of lines and the creative thoughts of the artist behind them) reaches the boundaries of the infinite. Each leaf is an idea and a story. Every single pencil stroke is a feeling. Later, in the same book, Borges points out: "A leaf can be best hidden in a forest". In the case of Kókay, a similar process can be noticed. The mystery is concealed among a number of intricate sketches and leaves. Moreover, the tree stands as a symbol of the woman and is part of the symbolism of life and death. This symbolism cannot be devoid of love and sexuality. The leaf itself has an overt erotic overtone and a strong message.

The Portrait of the Poet and of the Town

I would like to focus attention on two earlier masterpieces that have been unfairly ignored by the critics. It is the portrait of the poet, Bálint Balassi, "the soldier of God", dying at Esztergom. While the portrait has all the distinguishing and characteristic features of Balassi's face, in the portrait gallery of famous Hungarian heroes and authors, the drawing can be viewed as a soldier of the period or a story-teller of the Reform Era. A face that could belong to anybody - a portrait of any Hungarian poet and writer with a troubled and adventurous life. The delicate face, the elaborate clasp of the pelisse and the two tendrilous, ornamented stripes (of satin, taffeta, velvet or damask fabrics) edging the left and right sides of the composition, all evoke the 16th century. The drawing, "The View of Esztergom", has a horizontal perspective. The picture of the landscape and the town could be regarded as a counterpart to the vertical Balassi portrait. The map-like drawing resembles the prints of the period, made by Hufnagel. The two delicate and naive twin portraits (the human face and the picture of the landscape) reveal Kókay s excellent drawing skill and give rise to new thoughts and arouse debates about the dilemma and the future of representation and rerepresentation. The artist is trying to find her way in the process of drawing. Her two earlier drawings not only accompany the fine pages of the rich foliage-vegetation and the architectural structures, but they seem to lay the foundation of a sensitive sequence that has remained unfinished and awaits to be continued.

Images of the Face

In the final phases of drawing, Kókay's trees and leaves often take on an architectonic quality once again. The stone, the wall and the capital return in her works. The capital, with the hint of a concealed or fairly recognizable face, implies an anthropomorphizing intention. The column is considered to be the most direct and obvious architectonic equivalent and symbol of her personality as well as the most anthropomorphic architectural form. According to Mojzer, the column is highly individual. Some religions attribute human features to superior beings. The Bible forbids the anthropomorphic depiction of God. The avoidance of this taboo and the geometry of the human face led to the widespread practice of applying symmetrically arranged floral ornamentation or calligraphy, in order to imitate the shape of a face. Thus the act of making "graven images" could not be proven. The Holy authors, having already touched upon the question of anthropomorphism, were not really against the sensible depiction of Deity, but against the worship of idols. They struggled to maintain the transcendence of God. Similarly, a mysterious face seems to be hiding or to be camouflaged in one of Krisztina Kókay's newest maze of leaves and stone, producing the labyrinth of a face. It reminds us of a sign in the sand or of the intertwined branches of a tree behind the luxuriant foliage. The play of the closed eyes can also be mentioned, especially when a strange image appears on the inner surface of the shut eyelids, just as in the drawing. "It is a glistening path, a zigzagging esoteric maze, a silky sand-beach, a complicated disguise or the golden mask of a king left and neglected in an abandoned, destroyed church."