LUCIA TALLOVÁ

Before the beginning after the end

Gallery ALFA Košice

Curated by Zuzana Pacáková

​

Before the beginning, after the end is the first monographic exhibition of author which presents a new and so far the most complex cycle of paintings, collages and objects with an overlap to painting. The title of the exhibition casts a hint to an unclear situation which had already happened or is about to cave in. It slowly immerses us to a story. Smoke, dust, flying ash, stoic peace, a stormy sky, empty city, spilled out water-table, symbols of the apocalypse... 

Unman architecture, horizons in contrast, play of perspectives, freezing nothingness. Never- ending black and white landscapes intersecting with the dramatic vault and creating a mysterious tension before the storm. Lucia`s paintings are a time-laps of nostalgic landscapes which are seizing to listen to an unspoken lyrical tale. 

Dynamic abstract watercolour sections alternate with realistic architecture and fragments of romantic lace depicted just in a touch like a recognized raster giving the required depth to space. 

Lucia`s advancement in monochrome is visible when looking at the custard pink horizons which underline the femininity and sweetness of nostalgic memories even stronger. Multiplied by application of old family photographs, they create rather personal archive of author`s fictive memories of places which she had never visited. 

Rhythm of static lands is emphasized with changing formats just like particular themes they describe, from wide-screen views of the landscape to  ́ ́zoomed ́ ́ cut-outs of the stormy clouds or spilled water level. We are gradually getting along from intimate minimalistic collages to wide scale plane where the black flowing parts shift to white rhythmic pauses. In playing with perspective, layering and finding surprising depth in pieces, achieved in fold of the layers flashing in various definition, just like watching an unclear land through an objective of a camera. 

Particles of burnt paper emerging from the canvas, black leakage, ribbons, pools of colour, spilled paper, are parts of natural progress regards to last decorative elements of lace, rose, pearl or a tear – apparent references to femininity, romanticism and sentiment, so typical of Lucia. 

A new dimension in Lucia`s making is movement to space, even though the painting remains predominant to every other displayed aspects, from photographic collage to atypical objects of painting and video-evoking moving cut-out from a seaside photography. Clear scenography, repeating themes and decorative elements are bordering the pure aesthetics of contemporary design and moving the author`s series to a new posture in expression. 

The title of exhibition Before the beginning, after the end can be interpreted not just thematically but as an upcoming era in author`s creative work, which finds itself at the beginning of a new series with element significant to the older works too. From industrial land and predominant urbanism, Lucia is slowly moving towards natural sceneries inspired by monumentality of endless ocean. Apocalyptic scenes of unman land showing a harbour, a hangar, lighthouses slowly sinking into the ocean which will swallow them up in while. We are found in a kind of intermission in an ongoing story with blurry beginning and end. 

Zuzana Pacáková 

​

​

​

​