Kira KOVÁCS
Unrealistic fears of Óbuda mums, 2022
acrylic, oil pastel, canvas 150×200 cm
About the artist
The paintings of Kira Kovács (1998) are not static works, but complex, dynamic networks, where the visuality and meaning of the images interact closely: they exist in symbiosis with each other. Each work is an integral part of a larger narrative in which the images complement each other, leading to deeper layers. In her work, Kovács often presents personal stories, but she also emphasises not only his own experience but also the subjective nature of the experience of the viewer. The malleability and interconnectivity of narratives thus play an important role in her art; she invites the viewer to engage with her body of work as if it were an infinite, ever-changing story.
The narrative character of the paintings unfolds through the relationship between narrative and visual art. Drawing on real experiences, her work creates open possibilities for interpretation, ultimately seeking to make her paintings not just a one-way visual experience, but a dialogue between work and viewer, or perhaps more importantly, between viewer and viewer. She combines different painting styles, using mixed media to create her montage-like works. Her toolbox includes acrylic paint, pastels, graphite, charcoal, as well as airbrush techniques and even traditional oil paint. This diversity of approach is reflected in her pre-diploma paintings, where the viewer's gaze can wander through the dense fabric of the paintings without a fixed point of departure or a predetermined range of interpretation, allowing a subjective reading to prevail.
In her new works, however, a more traditional pictorial principle can be observed, which builds up the layers of a composed scene in a diorama-like manner, sometimes highlighting the subject of the painting with a white-painted background, sometimes as a grey and genderless anonymous figure. Her figure embodies both the interpreter and the pathfinder, who appears as a point of departure, his journey and story guided by the various pictorial elements. The signs and elements thus serve increasingly as a crutch for both the creator and the recipient to discover their own path and interpretation, embracing the multiple and interconnected narratives inherent in the artworks. The change in the language of painting is marked by recurring spray wall elements in the paintings, familiar handholds from the walls of climbing gyms, which serve as metaphors to aid navigation, both literally and symbolically. The spraywall has no predefined routes, so climbers can decide for themselves the order in which they use the holds, offering a sense of freedom within a structured framework. In other words, the walls, densely packed with climbing holds of different shapes and sizes, offer an analogy for the intricate balance between freedom and structure that is paramount in the artist's work. Kovács thus metaphorically draws parallels between her art and the rules and elements that structure sport, emphasising the importance of the route, the level of difficulty, the getting from point A to point B. This juxtaposition refers to self-determination as an autonomous possibility within a defined system.
Hungarian University of Fine Arts
2023
University of Arts in Belgrade (Erasmus)
Fuego en la sangre- FLU openLab, Belgrade (group)
Make it through the line, reset art space, Budapest (individual)
We are all strangers in someone else’s Paradise, MKE Profil, Budapest (group)
Flowering, Sesztina Galéria, Debrecen (group)
Artworks
4A, 2024
mixed media on canvas, 155×110 cm
6A+, 2024
mixed media on canvas, 135×100 cm
7A, 2024
mixed media on canvas, 156×110 cm
6B, 2024
mixed media on canvas, 155×75 cm
Sketch 4, 2024
mixed media on canvas, 40×40 cm
Part time job, 2024
mixed media on canvas, 100×70 cm
Fishing with my grandpa, 2022
acrylic, oil pastel, canvas 164×200 cm
Cake from summer, 2022
acrylic, oil pastel, canvas 164×110 cm
King of my castle, 2022
akrylic, canvas 70×50 cm
Chicken noodle, 2022
akril, canvas, 50×70 cm
Unrealistic fears of Óbuda mums, 2022
acrylic, oil pastel, canvas 150×200 cm
Flowers for Zoran Dimovski, 2022
acrylic, oil pastel, canvas 110x75 cm
Ricardio, 2022
acrylic, oil pastel, canvas 160×190 cm
Exhibitions
Spraywall
16 October - 15 November 2024
The first solo exhibition of Kira Kovács (1998) at Rechnitzer Gallery is a selection of her most recent works and paintings made during her university years.