Kókay Krisztina (Esztergom, 2005)
JUDIT JÓRY The draughtsman's contract The draughtsman's paper mantle (Krisztina Kókay's exhibition at the Fészek) The artist's latest drawings are exhibited in a well-lit third floor gallery of the Fészek. The sheets of white paper and tracing paper - the combined effects of whites and blacks, the refinement and minuteness - mutedness - of the drawings, the alternation of huge dimensions and small drawings and the choice of new material - tracing paper - come as a revelation. The alternating shades of these works, the lighter, paler, fainter surfaces together produce an interesting effect. (A tracing paper work, with its black ink lines and photocopied ink, is deeper black than a drawing.) The smaller works depict mountains, towers, esoteric gardens, mazes of leaves, crumbling seas of foliage, tessellated canopies of heaven and organic, anatomical labyrinths of walls, bodily mechanisms, hardly discernible faces. She works the drawing paper, the white sheets, with powerful strokes of sharp scraping black- lead (3H-5H), similar to an etching needle, or black Indian ink. Obviously, she draws different versions according to her artistic moods and the influences of her environment. Two series of drawings of identical sizes have a familiar atmosphere. This time, Kókay has produced two large-size opuses in addition to the series of drawings. Torso is a torso broken in half - a large (3 by 1.5m) paper drawing, a pale, hatched vertical composition. A work of paper. A paper mantle. In the enclosed space of the gallery this vertical formation and the other, horizontal, largesized drawing, Mantle, are each other's counterparts or pendants. The Mantle, the ritual garment made on tracing paper, the tracing paper mantle, is executed in a unique way. The relatively small original drawing of organically arranged subtle lines and touches was enlarged on tracing paper using the simple and beneficial method of photocopying. The large sheets were then painstakingly glued side by side. Tracing paper is stiff and also soft, it seems matte, but has a metallic surface, it is both transparent and opaque. Tracing paper, preferred by the architects, the floating surface of tracing paper used in this case for copying, proved to be a fabric-like, good basic material. The huge horizontal "paper mantle" has an extensive surface. It is an interesting piece in the line of the artist's previous works. Be it said incidentally that the warm air coming up from the air vent of the central heating system makes the large-sized drawing slowly sway and rustle. The mantle - the shepherd's mantle - covered the orphan and the abandoned sheep, he shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye (Deut 32:10). The Lord - the king - seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple (Isa 6:1). And like a groom he spreads the corner of his garment over his people (Eze 16:88). The mantle, the robe, with its odd narrowed semicircular arch, with the prolific patterns, embellishments and designs of the ornamental stripe running down its bisecting line is puzzling and unambiguous. Perhaps the meticulous, mosaiclike Mountain is a looser, more floating, more relaxed variation and enlarged version of Lofty Castle with its pronounced contour. The tracing paper mantle is like a ground plan. It is made of tracing paper, which is a common basic material for architects. The shape is familiar. Great architects often composed an oval "square" from two crescents. Lateral axes put in the center between the two semicircles turned the circle into an oval (Piazza s. Pietro, Piazza del Popolo).
