Ván Hajnalka (szerk.): Bepillantás a kintbe. Kolozsváry-Stupler Éva művészete - Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum Közleményei 9. (Békéscsaba, 2017)

Ván Hajnalka: Bepillatnás a kintbe

becomes visible. I was interested in the nucleus of all, how the atom and the neutrons, moving around it, attract and repel each other at the same time.”

Fatefulness can be observed mostly in works of the self-portrait type of works. An example of it is the important piece, Self (1995), which can be found in a private collection. Her bitter humor and self-irony is fascinating, as is the way she depicts herself as a die-hard person. The drawers forming the figure’s body - as we have seen in Surrealist paintings - are elements of herself, bundles of her personality. Each drawer contains a symbol of significant importance in her life, and one drawer cannot be opened; a secret she will not share. The artist tries to keep a distance; the figure does not look at the viewer, and the stripes of blood also signal that to be friends with her will not be easy. However, she still lets us have an insight and get acquainted with her. Ten years later, she confesses of herself and her faith more abstractly in My Many Roots, 2005. In a classic form, creating a work that can be hung up on the wall, she summarizes her life and affiliation as memories, but the chronological ‘development’ is reversed.

“As I get closer to the end of my life, I look back on the many efforts, struggles and my roots that I often had to pull out before they could have strengthened in new ground...”

The compositional form is pictures in a picture. The artist arranges the fields ad hoc, so we can decide how to read it; from the left to the right, or the opposite way; from the small to the big: or from the center to the outskirts. In the case of frames and boxes, there is no overlapping, because everything is important, even the edges of these holding elements. She does not apply the device of montage, but makes a list, a reckoning of her life. It is an artist’s confession, in which we can see the motive of the Lonesome Cedar as well. Quotations and memories are conveyed from home to home. In case of most pictures, the message leaves its frame. The roots reach far: thus the spectacle is really airy, and the artist’s life and poetry can be seized in this, because we can observe here freedom, which characterizes Eva Kolosvary-Stupler so well. Her works inspired by music are confessions too. In these works, the frame is often a symbol, because it is not a boundary, but a functional element (Scherzo, 2004; Syncopated Rhythm, 2004). Moreover, she sometimes leaves not only frames, but even space (Butterflies, 2015), providing a positive hint and hopeful content to her life-work.

"I like to play with everything. Everybody who reacts to it, that is on me! I have always liked playing and even after those many horrible experiences I went through in my childhood, I still think positively.”