Rita Koszorús (*1989, Bratislava) began her studies at the Josef Vydra University of Applied Arts in Bratislava. Subsequently, in 2008-2014 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, first at the Department of Free Graphic Art, later at the Department of Painting in the studio under the guidance of Prof. Daniel Fischer. In 2013, she completed an internship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest in the studio under the guidance of Imre Bukta. She participated in several residencies abroad, for example in Berlin, Paris, Porto and Budapest. She actively presents herself in solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad. She has been a finalist four times in the Painting of the Year competition and once in the Novum Foundation competition. In 2021 she won first place in the VUB Painting of the Year competition. The artist is represented by VILTIN Gallery in Budapest. Rita Koszorús' works are in private and gallery collections.
The abstract shapes on canvas and paper are the hallmarks of your work, but it hasn't been that way since the beginning of your career. Could you describe your journey from the concrete to abstraction?
I have always been inclined towards it, I just couldn't be satisfied with "non-representational" art for a considerable length of time. Probably, like most abstract painters and artists, at the beginning of that journey I was simplifying and schematizing reality, or I was intoxicated by expressive or gestural painting. The turning point came when I developed a strong enough visual vocabulary that gave me the freedom to vary shapes, textures and colours. That's when I seized the freedom that abstraction offers and began to organize it. That's how it came to be that I am currently creating a story, or rather "my own reality" out of abstraction.
Abstraction for you represents the freedom of rules, but the work often oscillates between personal introspection and social issues. Does abstraction give you the possibility to balance between these two worlds?
What is happening around us has never been indifferent to me, and the penetration of social themes into art is absolutely natural. What is not natural for me is to illustrate current politics or to leave my visual story at the mercy of political propaganda. I am neither an illustrator nor a sociologist, but I have a civic responsibility and I want to live in a democracy. I run my art program autonomously and free from these influences. I strive for a kind of universality - I am interested in themes that concern us all (such as the uncertain future due to the ecological crisis) and in a visuality that can be read very similarly from the perspective of different people, not just, for example, one nationality and so on. In a way, I shy away from focusing too much on personal themes, at the same time the visual trace created by a person represents the totality of intellectual, personal and tasteful reality. If I were to place my art on a line with one end of personal statement and the other of actual politics, it would probably be somewhere in the middle. I don't strive for balance in the sense of harmony, but rather complementarity and contrast.
Your works often convey a sense of memories. How do you work with personal and collective memory?
Memory fascinates me. The past is the only certainty of our existence, but at the same time it doesn't necessarily mean freedom. To feel safe and secure in certainties is our basic need, but I think that only every minute behind us represents a certainty, because we are constantly creating a present and a future that is also shaped by external influences and everything can easily change. Memory is the repository of information and lived experiences that make up our being. Collective memory is an even more fascinating phenomenon that conditions the same reactions and associations of societies, thus creating a certain common certainty. I work with memory on levels of association, building certain atmospheres that universally pose situational questions for the viewer in abstract visuals.
Even the inattentive viewer will notice a sensitivity to textures and materials. How much importance do you place on physical tangibility in contrast to visual aesthetics?
I am an analogue person, I don't work well with the digital world, I don't make friends with technology, and at the same time, when I can, I choose experience and experience first, then theory. It is absolutely natural for me to reach for haptic materials, for something that I can shape with my hands alone. But I don't shy away from realizations that require other people and experts in other fields. This is precisely the reason why I am absolutely not afraid of AI. A painter/painter can speculate, surprise himself, engage the contingencies that materiality offers. Human nature towards unwanted mistakes created through process will probably always be unique. I'm tempted by video and film, but I've been saying that for years, discouraged by the very technical skill I want, which I don't have. I hope that the contrast you ask about appears in my work through structures that, by directing and composing, create situations and thus radiate the tension between raw form and sleek surface.
Does improvisation, chance or chaos play a role in your work? If so, can you work with them in all techniques?
I love the spontaneity and the magic of absurd, unexpected moments, but whether in life or in my work, I would be an untamable missile if I didn't learn to control it. I would be a nihilist in life and a gestural painter of one layer over and over in my work. I compose chance into a conscious idea and improvisation primarily takes place in my head, and on the canvas I already know what's going to happen, at least to a large extent. I let others surprise me, and when it's appropriate, I plug into the action. Chaos, as in life, as in creation, is a beginning that I gradually arrange into order. Which is to say, yes, I work with it in all techniques and areas of life and work.
You do large format paintings, but also small format, whether in the medium of painting or collage. What differences in approach do these two formats and media require? How do they affect the way an idea is shared?
Small format is more intimate and easier to grasp, large format is always a challenge. Always, despite years of experience. Collage helps me capture an idea faster, in painting there are endless opportunities to push technological boundaries. Lately even my works on paper have been riddled with drawing or sewing techniques. For me, the techniques overlap quite naturally and by working in series and stages, the concepts I put into the works are similar on paper and on canvas. I choose the medium according to my imagination.
You have been moving around different countries on residencies. But you come from an academic background in Slovakia and Hungary. What is your relationship to each country and artistic community? Do you notice differences between them?
This is a question that many people ask me and it comes up in perhaps every conversation with me. Everything I compare is a subjective view and based on personal experience. From this point of view, for example, the academic environment in Budapest suited me better than the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. But it's about timing. I came out of the school in Bratislava with a broken soul, but perhaps as a result I learned to stand on my own two feet and be purposeful despite outside opinions. School is school, a short stage of life, it doesn't always have to be all rosy. By being a social creature, one has a desire to belong somewhere - to a group, a community, etc. My advantage and disadvantage is multilingualism and dual cultural identity. People with this background are taught that they don't quite belong anywhere, but at the same time they feel all the more free and adapt more easily to a foreign environment - sort of being at home everywhere and part of an artistic community anywhere.
What do you think is the position of painting today?
Probably ten years ago I wouldn't have had the courage to say so unequivocally that painting has always been here and always will be. It changes, like everything else around us and within us. I might not even have had the courage to say that I feel at home in it. But I have naturally built up a bond with this medium and, paradoxically, I am attracted to it all the more the more often it is considered outdated, outmoded or commercial. It is much harder to create something inventive in painting than in a combination of other media where the historical context doesn't breathe down the neck of the imagination. It is a stigmatized medium. But painters work all the time, they don't just create for exhibitions. To stop painting for a prolonged period risks losing the bravura spontaneity, the insight into techniques and the dynamism of transforming material - as conservative and pre-flood as that may sound. Standing in front of a canvas is always a bit scary, even for the hundredth time. It requires discipline and determination. For me, painting is more than an artistic agenda or a desire for success. I'll follow up on the answer to the third question by summing up: the position of painting will only be secure when it becomes a thing of the past. The painting as an artifact is a vehicle of time, and the moment the last touch of the "brush" leaves it, it is closed. In this way it becomes the past, but in different contexts it becomes extremely alive.
