I'M THE LAND YOU ARE THE SEA
The exhibition project titled I’m the Land, You Are the Sea presents an expansive spatial installation and new works from the eponymous series, created specifically for the gallery. Tallová’s practice consistently engages with the motif of the archive and the idea of the collection. Her central themes are memory—its preservation, fading, transformation, and manipulation within the context of time. She combines the classical medium of painting with collage, spatial installations, objects, photographs, and reproductions, creating a considered interplay between her ongoing themes and the materials she employs. She reshapes the gallery space, incorporating furniture and architecture into which she embeds individual works or painterly interventions.
The theme of the archive refers to her collecting of old photographs, albums, postcards, porcelain, stones, various bizarre objects and pieces of furniture—objets trouvés—which she subsequently manipulates and transforms. They become her working tools, underscored by the layering and repetition of her characteristic motifs: dissolving black ink, pools of spilled paint, drifting particles of dust and smoke, blurred horizons, ribbons, or flowers—strong symbols of femininity, nostalgia, and sentiment. The female figure becomes the central motif in the re-narration of black-and-white photographs, which the artist appropriates and personalizes.
Variations of wooden shelves and cabinets often recur in her exhibitions; over time they have evolved into platforms and installations made from found old furniture. In the installation I’m the Land, You Are the Sea, a wooden structure constructed from salvaged furniture symbolizes the land, the coastline. The scene evokes an island or a heap of flotsam shaped by the force of water. A wash of black ink, set into the structure, represents the sea and its distant horizon. The artist continually returns to the theme of atmospheric landscape, which remains a central element of her visual program. In her narratives, landscape symbolically assumes the attributes of human relationships and emotions. From her first large-format landscapes, the motif of natural scenery has expanded into space, becoming tangible as the viewer enters an environment the artist composes almost scenographically.
Tallová often uses her older ink drawings and watercolor paintings—crumpling, cutting, and gluing them to form collages—granting a “second life” to pieces never before shown, kept in sketchbooks or the depths of her studio. Some works allude to automatic drawing, a kind of circling back, a re-telling of old works and stories in a metaphorical sense. The exhibition’s core themes are cyclical repetition, intuitive collecting and arranging, as well as the artist’s direct engagement with space.
The sea is a symbol of infinity and the passage of time. Everything around it is subject to change. The title I’m the Land, You Are the Sea may be understood as evoking the powerful experience of an encounter or relationship—one that has the potential to transform an entire life in a single moment.
TOMAS UMRIAN CONTEMPORARY
Bratislava, Slovakia
13. April - 10.May 2019