Ágnes Kontra’s latest collection of paintings demonstrates the continuous deepening and enrichment of her painterly vision. Painted with a distinctly personal, signature brushstroke in large-scale abstract oil-on-canvas works, their elusive vibrancy — the optical and emotional magic of color created from few or even a single hue — creates for us an experience of presence even in their very nature as works devoid of subject matter and representation.
The paradox of the exhibition’s title (In the Presence of Color) is realized within the gallery itself; that is, color is simultaneously a material, a pigment, and an elusive, ever-changing, sensory phenomenon. And this, in turn, is the paradox of painting itself: the image appearing on the surface of the painted canvas becomes a spiritual reality.
The arrangement of the oil paintings also functions as an installation that encompasses the entire room. The group of paintings—placed not only on the walls but also on the ceiling and floor, forming a spatial ring at one point in the room — appears as an extended reality of the works, one that encompasses the viewer as well. In the same way, through their unique optical effects, the individual paintings draw the viewer in almost immersively.
The indefinable saturation of color in Ágnes Kontra’s paintings effectively freezes the natural phenomenon—color itself—which is in a state of constant transformation in nature; and thus, we truly linger in the presence of color — disembodied color — at the B32 Gallery.
Miklós Sulyok