Júlia Vécsei

Presence

Archive

We perceive the passing of time through sequent events. Even if events around us follow each other inevitably, in our minds we can always stay in the past or in the future. But when are we in the present? Can the state of being present be perceived? The relationship of time and perception has been concerning Vécsei for a long time. In her drawing series entitled After Effect (2010) she explores the changing, unpredictable mechanism of remembrance. The material of the present exhibition is the continuation of the Timeline drawings (2016) displayed in Kisterem Gallery’s show Reality Exercises, in which the abstract forms around the horizontal axis refer to the phases of the clock-hand. The picture fields of the Presence series (2018) keep the horizontal axis but in the same time shift in a vertical direction. The clean forms known from earlier graphics – like the orb, the circle or the line – are completed with anatomical sectional drawings. In each drawing the luster-like, gleaming surfaces of Japanese pearlescent watercolor increase the possibility of tilting of the abstract and figural shapes of uncertain state. The horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines create the reticular system that Vécsei spreads into space through the installations. The monotonous pattern of the wooden, plaster and silicon panels repeat the twelve phases of the clock-hand, advancing on the same track from line to line. The human body moves similarly to the clock-hand around its spine; it approaches the horizontal axis during the night and the vertical during the day. Although the units of the time net are constant, monotony gets broken: the here and there crackled design of the plaster-silicon installation (Fragment) turns from negative into positive, the wood piece’s (One Day) unity of twenty-four hours gets upset by its network organized into asymmetrical waves. Vécsei precisely depicts the relative nature of permanence, and by tackling time out of joint she makes hidden structures of presence visible.

Lili Varga

photography by Miklós Sulyok