Kókay Krisztina (Esztergom, 2005)
GYŐZŐ SOMOGYI Krisztina Kókay Krisztina Kókay's drawings are characterized by the same vapor-like, ethereal touch as her textiles. These are also handwoven designs, drawings woven from black-lead lines. The essence and the origin is certainly the drawing built up of tiny splinters and rods of lines creating a unique form of beauty that weaving, photography or photocopying are unable to reproduce. It is present only in the original drawing. The secret of the beauty of the incredibly refined surface lies in the gauzy mirage that vibrates among the multitude of small lines aligned side by side. Whether we see the shadow of the microscopical breadth of black-lead or Indian ink or it's just the imagination of our eyes or nerves, we cannot know. It is there. What we do know is that it is created by the exactly right spacing between the lines, never the same. Kókay drawings resist not only reproduction but enlargement as well. The viewer craves in vain, with his nose pressed against the glass, to glimpse the secret, the individual lines. But looking at a blow-up of the picture or looking at the original drawing through a reading-glass, the magic is gone. So you have to look at it, look at the whole picture from the right distance, because, in addition to the beauty of the surface, the rhythm of the composition, its raked waves hold a further aesthetical and conceptual content. Every sheet seems meticulously planned. The proportion and the shapes of the spaces left clean and the spaces filled are perfect. However, it is not a question of planning, of conscious composition. The drawing is generated without a design the same way the lines are arranged along each other without measurement. To be able to draw like that needs a completely relaxed, half-unconscious state of mind. Like children draw. It happens only when the mind is dozing or is switched off and the hand takes over, guided by instinct and the soul. Guided also by a life experience matured into instincts, by old knowledge, by aesthetical education. One line desires the next one. The beauty-driven rhythm of drawing each line, the already filled-in surface dictates the direction of the new lines. And it also tells the artist when to stop. This moment, at times, is incomprehensible, but it is always exactly right. To be able to draw like that needs inspiration. Inspiration and diligence - those are the keys to Krisztina Kókay's art, and the rest is secret. 2003
