In the process of human perception, information and stimuli from the outside world become first accessible through our senses, then cognitively processable, and finally receptive. Our eyes, like those of most living things on Earth, can detect wavelengths in the entire electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from about 380 to 780 nanometres, from ultraviolet to infrared.
Lia Orsolya Vető’s solo exhibition Gentle Radiation at the Viltin Gallery also moves within this range, guiding us through the visual stations of the concepts of perception and abstraction along the lines of colours, shapes and layers.
The series Liquid Slices of Time, which the artist has been working on since 2021, was inspired by his experience of the relativity of time. The vibrating entities that fill his abstract images fill the surface of the canvas, moving inexorably, merging into one another, often beyond the physical boundaries of the image, leaving behind hybrid traces as an imprint of their spatial wanderings and play. Details, often translucent in colour, evoking the archaic period, alternate with more artificial forms of neon colours. It is a surreal world where space and time mingle in an irregular, sensual labyrinth of spatial layers and material qualities.
Orsolya Lia Vető’s paintings form organically, mixing colours and layers, yet her horror vacui compositions, which lack resting points and are endowed with pop-art playfulness, are characterised by juxtaposition. Layers of superimposed oil paint applied with brushes and spatulas evoke a softly blurred or even sharply defined microbiological narrative, stepping outside the confines of human perspective and civilisation.
The mix of gestures, sometimes looser, sometimes more pastose, creates uncertainty and tension, while placing the elements of the composition in an associative order. Random gestures and forms gain identity in her paintings: the artist’s unique world of colour and form creates its own system, her gestures take on a life of their own, her organic forms constantly changing, overlapping distant timelines.
Starting from stylized natural forms, she boldly balances on the borderline between abstract and figurative painting, creating a materiality in her paintings that becomes more abstract through changes in scale. His world is both fictional and sensual, where the artist experiments with digital extensions of the traditional tools of painting, while his gesture-based painting is a strong reflection on our post-digital age.