Gréta Fedora Homzová: Manual of piety

---

Where:

• Galéria 19

  • Lazaretská 2402/19, 811 08 Bratislava

When:

• June 11, 2024 at 6 p.m.

  • more info
• exhibition duration: June 11 - 28, 2024

 

---

Curator: Gábor Gyennes

Text accompanying the exhibition:

I started following the work of Greta Fedora Homzová exactly one year ago during a semestral exhibition at AFAD. At that time, she was still studying at the preparatory course in printmaking, and we (the plural refers to the teaching duo of the Studio of Free and Color Printaking: Vojtech Kolenčík and me) were very pleased that she applied to our studio. Her talent was obvious from afar and in the moment. I remember that during our first personal meeting, I told her after a few sentences that "fine, our (pedagogical) task remains not to "spoil" you.

It is a very comfortable status to be Greta's teacher. Greta and I have been in the teacher-student structure for the past 9 months. This construction is also the concept of the exhibition series, which includes today's exhibition. During this time, I generated only two main pedagogical principles aimed at Greta: providing space for free creation and not disturbing her. Convenient, right?

Believe me, this is not pedagogical indifference on my part, but a rational evaluation of the state of affairs: Greta has a very mature handwriting for her age, and at the same time she shows humility towards her work and generous self-confidence in her work. A common phenomenon in general is that too much respect takes away from generosity, from self-confidence, or vice versa: overexposed self-confidence leads to superficiality and shallowness. But Gréta has harmony and balance in this area. And by thinking, feeling and absorbing high-quality artistic and literary culture: she is able to set her own themes and objects of artistic research.

Greta is only 21 years old and from this fact - an objective number - it follows that she is a talent. She is not old enough to be considered a mature artist, let's be sober! And let us be glad that we have such talents and appreciate them! Talent is potential, opportunity, accumulated energy, promising assumptions. I am honestly very curious as to what direction her work will take and to what height or rather depth she will reach and what thematic direction she will choose.

If I had to tip, I would say that she will stay with drawing, with figurative thinking, that she will continue to try to draw and paint with everything she finds (if something doesn't leave a mark on the canvas or paper, it will serve as a brush). I assume that as a philosophical starting point - at least for some time - existentialism will remain, and as a cure for the idea of ​​the absurdity of throwing oneself into being, I hope that they remain: altruism and compassion. And I hope even more that they are healing thoughts and not homeopathy.

Na stenách vidíte súbor kresieb, malieb a grafík, ktoré citlivo reagujú na množstvo kríz súčasnej doby. Ako sa má postaviť mladý človek k svetu, ktorý už čoraz menej zaručuje stálosť, je nevypočítateľný a plný hrozieb? Aké páky má mladá výtvarníčka na radikalizovanú a hermeticky rozdelenú spoločnosť, na súčasné vojny, a na ekologickú krízu? Ako sa má zachovať  výtvarníčka v spoločnosti s ťažkou diagnózou ADHD a to v krajine, v ktorej k porozumeniu vecí potrebujeme naštudovať metódu doublethink  od Orwella?

On the walls you can see a set of drawings, paintings and prints that respond sensitively to the many crises of the present time. How should a young person approach a world that is increasingly less stable, unpredictable and full of threats? What leverage does the young artist have on a radicalized and hermetically divided society, on current wars, and on the ecological crisis? How should an artist behave in a society with a difficult diagnosis of ADHD, in a country where we need to study Orwell's doublethink method to understand things?

They have a hard time, we have a hard time. Greta's solution consists in directing attention from the outside to the inside, in a sober awareness of the state of affairs. Her moral support is kindness and compassion. We often forget these qualities, but we haven't come up with anything better yet, so let's try to realize them again and appreciate them.

Gabriel Gyenes

---