Zsuzsanna PAÁL, painter

Her studies: School of Decoration (1989-91), Hungarian Craft School, Animation-graphic faculty (1991-95), Hungarian Craft School Institute of Masters, Visual-Communication Faculty (1995-97), Animation Faculty (1995-97). CWI Amsterdam, Computer-animation (1998-99). She is a member of the National Association of Hungarian Artists and Young Craftsman Studio. “To put a soul into a lifeless thing, forming a picture, a sculpture is such a thing than to feel that the thing gives back everything what the person put into it, similarly to the bright sunshine mirrored back by the ponds” – says Zsuzsanna Pál.
Exhibitions (selected): Lajos Str. Exhibition House of Budapest Gallery, “Újlipótváros” Gallery (1998); Batattic Acrobatic, Academy Minerva, Groningen (The Netherlands), “Moon-faced” Thermal Hotel, Budapest (1999).
She has received national and foreign fellowship on five occasions.

My ideas

I have often been puzzled over how to render thoughts on my paintings into words, as these were born of very profound and intimate oscillations of mine. Most of the time, the origin of my pictures is unfathomable even for me. Time and over again I pondered what calls forth those forms or creatures that I come to paint on wood or canvas.

I prefer akril paint because you can dilute it with water. I like using water when composing pictures and azure colours predominate on me. This is partly because I can paint a lot of shade layers upon each other, and partly because the transparency of the picture can be greatly enhanced in this way. All these ethereal layers make it possible for a painting to relate more than one story, motion or atmosphere at that. But how do they come into being? On second thoughts, having recollected all the moments when a new motive dawned on my mind, they seem to have one thing in common - they flare up quite unexpectedly and unnoticeably. There are, however, several recurring symbols in my paintings. One of them is the sign of a ship. Most often rather a boat-shaped form. I paint it always in lateral view. It is interesting to note that I've never painted it in front, back or upper view so it looks more like an axially stretched plate. There is a three-part painting of mine entitled The Gift, which displays these boat- shaped plates being held out towards each other by the figures in a "give and take" gesture. To be sure, the plates are empty. What is then to be given away? Everything and anything. This is the symbol of sharing encompassing just anything starting from conveying emotions and ending with partaking food.

Of late, it is the ribbon that has become the chief motive of my paintings. I also entitled my new series Prayer Ribbons. To my mind, the prayer ribbons form a drapery, which can be inscribed with people's thoughts and desires, hung out in the open and fluttered on the wings of the wind. Having met with the air, the primordial element, the prayer ribbon becomes a part of the eternal cycle of the wind, sun, energy and natural forces. This train of thoughts resembles a drop of water melting into homogeneous cosmos as it enters the river and begins its own journey. In my reading it is the faith and trust that comes in the way of the ribbon as an assurance that the message will hit home. Something very similar happens to my boats following their destination adrift rippling river waves. My boats have no engines and their sails are but symbols without any real function. The boats are plied by the river at will. The boat meets with water, the primordial element, and entrusts itself to its care.