The second solo exhibition of the internationally recognized artist, Zsuzsanna KÓRÓDI titled Nomophobia at VILTIN Gallery showcases her latest series.

Zsuzsanna Kóródi: Nomophobia 
Text by: Flóra Mészáros

April 28 - June 12, 2021
VILTIN Gallery, Budapest

 

Zsuzsanna KÓRÓDI pins her perfectly designed 'pictures' behind her layered, printed glasses. When joined together, the reliefs become endless variations of three-dimensional space and oscillating surfaces.

During her DLA studies, she experimented with new methods partly due to the home-bound lockdown caused by the pandemics. Replacing the usual optical glass-rods, she created works with glass-like, transparent polymer paste lines. Besides the mathematically precise, meticulously predictable glass, these pieces emphasize the artist's painterliness, spontaneity, and the organic value of this material. Eventually, the hustle and bustle of today's virtual spaces emerge, and both methods test the spectator's eyes and biological vision while forcing one to move continuously.

The optical illusion maximized by a change of perspective creates a flowing effect similar to the banding, dynamic, and transparent constructions of one of the op-art masters, Carlos Cruz-Diez. In all exhibited works, KÓRÓDI complemented this vibrant effect with rest points, inviting the viewer to relax and then refresh the eyes. Cruz-Diez believed that the artist's job is not the creation itself but re-creating the already created. This is precisely how KÓRÓDI creates and invites the viewer to create. Our conscious vision enables us to interpret the artwork in its entirety and in its units and even in relation to two-dimensional and three-dimensional surfaces through the new elements and the rest points. Among the non-figurative artists, at that of op-art illusionists, KÓRÓDI offers a further clue and boldly takes on the images' sensual, sociological and philosophical context.

Concluding the ensemble of works, the title suggests a clear socio-critical aspect and shows a strong sense of imagery.Nomophobia - no mobile phone phobia - is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, and thus studies the mobile phone addiction being a severe symptom of the information society.Her images are exciting, sensual color choices - a joint palette of pure and mixed colors.Despite their precise, clean, constructive nature and freshness, the works go against the op-art tradition in the specific thematic approach mentioned above and their assumption of KÓRÓDI's conscious 'fine art' thinking. While most op-art artists bravely refuse the signature-like mode of creation and recognize the reproduced works as artwork, KÓRÓDI, as a young contemporary op-art artist, deliberately overwrites this primary method.

The very use of glass, a traditional applied art technique, contradicts the possibility of copying, meanwhile recalls the 'artwork behind the glass' feeling in the viewer, making the digital prints almost unapproachable, untouchable. The prints are different on every image, and each work is an individual illusion and entity in its interaction with the glass, encouraging the visitor to pause.Therefore, the cohesive, in fact cyclic, series invites the viewer to compare its pieces while interpreting them independently.

The subject matter indicated by the title is accurate. Nomophobia, the depiction of technological dependency, is the driving force behind all images, but the exhibition dissolves the inner tension caused by the works. The viewer is exposed to constant visual stimulus, just as with mobile phones and technical gadgets. However, jumping from image to image is not possible despite the internet's pixel effect, and because of the above mentioned, one is forced to stop and explore different themes. In contrast to the fast-paced world, the spectator can finally immerse in the works and fully discover the variants born from the interplay of glass/silicon and digital prints within the gallery walls.

Text: Flóra Mészáros
(translated from the Hungarian original by Éda Meggyesházi)