Closed Eyes

“Lying with one’s eyes closed is not sleeping. One can see with their eyes closed too; not the world around us but the one that appears in our minds,” says Márta Czene about the exhibition titled Eyes Closed, showcasing a selection of her most recent works. “When you look into yourself with your eyes closed, at the bottom of your thoughts you can see (blurred) images of things invisible to the naked eye.”

The works in INDA Gallery’s Project room show that a very consistent, carefully thought out and deeply sensitive artistic practice has organically developed into its next stage of experimenting, in a sense, a new phase. Czene’s earlier paintings were narrative experiments towards a painterly method with references to movie editing. This working method also included a storyboard-type system.

In her new works, due perhaps partly to her new, more introverted lifestyle that came with childbirth and parenting, she has shifted from the narrative and film techniques. Her large canvases, as well as her photos and videos, have been more personal, even less directly narrative than those in her earlier practice. These works are based on much more free associations, and the strictness of form characterising Czene’s earlier works is also less present.

According to Czene “being alone and withdrawn is a little like living with one’s eyes closed. Paying attention to nothing but what is inside or within the boundaries of the most immediate world around you. Not seeing and even ignoring everything that is outside this circle. Rejecting everything that is scary to see, disregarding whatever is perturbing and unbearable in the world outside. Total exclusion of the outside world is, of course, impossible, as everything happens in a context of external things. Self-limitation is the response to a reality that is intent on limiting us.”

At the point where nothing remains, total freedom from limits begins. When you dance with your eyes closed, you can move more freely because you have relieved yourself of the burden of orientation.