Agnes Rathonyi

My paintings evolve organically from life’s everyday glances. Rather than trying to force my will on them, I give them total control. Each layer determines and guides the next. I am fascinated by the texture of paint, and the shapes and movements it can make. However, I do not want to be labelled an abstractionist. I want forms that the viewer can relate to, but I did not want to paint perfect photographs that left nothing for the viewer’s imagination. My assemblages contain intense distilled images, objects, and surfaces that create a confrontation between past and present. They are affirmations of serenity, recollection and enhancement as well as wake up calls to the reality of our present lives. The weathering process on older works of art, particularly frescos, marks the depth and richness of the passage of time. I seek to evoke the same process by the layering of my painting’s surfaces and by the fragmentation of the world’s most beautiful elements. I add dimensions of expressiveness by applying the paint with a palette knife, enchanting the drama by not only leaving knife strokes visible, but engraving the paint too. I stretch canvases on triple stretchers and wide bars, and paint all visible surfaces. I may continue the image on more than one surface, creating a nearly tree dimensional work that can be viewed from multiple angles, in a sense, saying the painting is larger than the canvas can contain. Aside from content consideration, I choose compositions based on formal elements, such as form and colour. blended into a work of form, I draw upon my years of painting experience and technical ability to create naturalistic combined with modern representations that are easily recognizable and pleasing to the eye. My paintings are dialogue between giving and taking. I do not want to sign the work until it looks like it has been lived on. Until I have violated the open white space and created something that can become independent of me and fend for itself. We are, in all of our differences, hardly more than collections of fragmented memories contextualized by time.