Over the past few years, I have been particularly focused on the abstract rendering of culturally representative garments and their incorporation into my sculptural work. This exhibition presents the current stage of this thought process, paying particular attention to the representation of culturally embedded interpretations of the body and their contemporary discursive contexts. The phenomenon and interpretation of the body are an inescapable dimension of human reality.
Body and soul, subject and object, as well as the concepts associated with them, receive special attention in both Western and Eastern traditions. My artistic work simultaneously embodies both “culturally defaulted” interpretations and efforts to transcend cultural determinism. Although my sculptures are abstract and non-figurative in nature, they allude to the presence of the body precisely through the absence of direct objectivity, as conveyed by the symbolism of clothing motifs. In this sense, the body becomes present through its very absence.
Réka Gergely