In European culture, the concept of symmetry derives from the Greek terms syn and metreo, literally meaning the right proportion of things. Over time, however, different disciplines have added a myriad of meanings to the concept, expanding its range of interpretation. While the term generally refers to regularity and harmony, in art it is most commonly associated with the notion of proportion and rhythm.
Luca Rózsa’s solo exhibition at Sára Viltin Gallery, Symmetries, is both an interpersonal retrospective of the beginning of her artistic career and a duo exhibition: alongside her emblematic paintings and small, intimate indigo drawings, Rózsa’s silk paintings of her grandmother are also displayed. The artist’s long-standing wish to exhibit in the same space as her greatest supporter, who has always been an important source of inspiration. Luca Sára Rózsa’s works reflect on the relationship between the two and the parallels and symmetry of the two women’s destinies. The different zeitgeist played a decisive role in the process of becoming or not becoming an artist, and the exhibition tells the story of the dilemmas, cycles and amplitudes of the two women’s lives reflected on each other.
Luca Sára Rózsa’s large-scale canvases explore the interconnections between the individual and the environment. In her paintings, large amorphous figures wrapped in timelessness instead of clothes, find their place in the world in a natural environment, in a paradisiacal milieu, so to speak. From the very beginning, iconographic models and painterly traditions have played an important role in Rózsa’s work, but he has also moved away from classical depictions of human beings, and instead of specific fates and figures, he speaks in general terms about human situations, questions and destinies.
This dialogue with the viewer and with himself is facilitated by the impersonality of the figures, in addition to the gesture of abstraction. A recurring feature of her work is the emphasis on the duality of past and present, which is revealed in the exhibition in terms of the fates of the two female artists, as Rózsa’s earliest inspirations are taken into account. The relationship between man and his environment is thus now complemented by a subjective layer, thanks to the personal story, in addition to the general philosophical context.
The phenomenon of reflection is visually significant in the images of the exhibition. In addition to its symbolic role, the mirror of water in the paintings simultaneously connects and separates, reveals and distorts, refracts and smoothes. We see ourselves in it, constantly changing, always different. At the same time, the drawings with indigo show the artistic gesture and intention in a translational way, thanks to the shifting of the medium through which they are made, so that the distorting gesture of reflection becomes apparent in the use of the medium. In the works in the exhibition, memory, the image of the self, the image of the self as seen and created, and distortion are all given equal weight, evoking both collective and reconstructive memory.