Sky? Pit?

Andrea Gulyás’s Skypit I and Skypit II make up one pair. Connecting two pictures so different both in size and – seemingly – in subject matter may look unusual. Nonetheless, this is not the only confusing feature of these works.

One can associate these paintings with René Magritte’s works already at first glance. Their colors and their concepts are strikingly similar, besides, their naturalistic rendering of the unreal provides a tension which cannot be released. Gulyás uses hyperrealism in an interestingly manipulative way: in both works, she steps on the verge between plastic art and painting.

Although there is “pit” in the titles, what one can see in Skypit II is not really a pit, but rather an immeasurably deep hole with a homogeneous blueness at the bottom.

Andrea Gulyás: Skypit I 2011, 160x35, Skypit II 2011, 160x120

By immeasurable, I mean not only a vast deepness, but also a distance that cannot be estimated. To start with, it does not appear to be so deep at first sight, moreover, its depth seems to alternate when looked at from different angles. But what seems evident at first glance, soon turns out to be dubious. Is one really looking from above and gazing downwards or just the other way around: looking up from the bottom of a murky shaft, towards the clear, blue sky? And is it actually a patch of blue sky or is it just illusion as well? The color of the canvas is azure, this is for certain, but when one interprets it as the sky, one might be (mis)led by the title. Therefore, these works show a complex relationship between image and its title, a problem that often arises in Magic Realism. So one may ask: Do titles guide or misguide? Are they essential to the understanding of the works or are they merely additions?

Halfway, in the wall of the well, there is a small niche with a wee empty nest therein. Its position makes one reinterpret the spatial relations of the picture again, as it makes evident that the tunnel that connects the two worlds is not a vertical but a horizontal one. The abandoned nest midway reminds me of loneliness, while it also recalls the image of a forgotten, desolate world.

The stripe of the other painting is like a side wing of a polyptych, which connects to the vague space of its pair in an asymmetrical way. The noteworthy disproportionateness of the canvas enhances the fragmentary quality of the picture. On a coat-hanger wrapped in azure silk (the color of which matches the sky in the other painting), there is a ”wooden camisole” hanging on the edge of a niche similar to the one which contains the nest in the other picture. Therefore, it may happen that the two pictures should be interpreted not in two dimensions but rather as slices of a three dimensional structure. Is it possible that the viewers are midway between two worlds, and while the nest is in front of them, the dress is hanging behind?

Anna Voelgyi