05 December 2006

print

Svetlana Kuliskova: from ART PROTIS to multimedia art


zoom

zoom

zoom

zoom

zoom

zoom

zoom

The inconsiderate attempt by authority to limit freedom of individual expression has generally turned out to be a predictable failure.  This is what happened in the Czech Republic, where, in the 1960s, with the cultural repression of the communist regime in full swing, the ART DOMUS in BRNO represented an area where young creative people could freely express their passion for decoration and beauty through techniques using textiles.
Thanks to the director’s love of art, a real artistic atelier grew up within a textile factory for the industrial production of material. With the economic upturn that came about in the Czech Republic, the elderly building that provided a home for this oasis of liberty, falling to bits as it was, had to eventually make way for a supermarket – but the heritage of this experience can certainly not be said to be exhausted.
Most significantly, the experimentation of these years brought about a new technique of copyright-protected textile production, Art Protis, and subsequently several artists continued to make use of the knowledge and experience gained at BRNO’s ART DOMUS to create splendid tapestries and carpets.
One of these is Svetlana Kuliskova: after graduating as an expert in textiles, specialising in clothing and costume design, she studied for another degree in Visual Arts at the VUT faculty in Brno, and then worked for four years as an artistic assistant at the ART DOMUS l’Atelier Art Protis in order to perfect her knowledge of “art created with needlework”.
The raw material for this particular procedure is rough Australian wool, which in the hands of the artist becomes ductile and multiform. In large or small quantities, the wool is arranged, cut, and ironed. Then, mixed together or thinned down into fine, transparent gauze, the desired form and gradation is arrived at. Layered by hand, in different levels and consistencies, like brushstrokes of colour, these textile elements are then combined using a special machine with a zigzag sewing process which gives the weave to the tapestry and is visible from only very close up.
“I think this technique,” Kuliskova says, “offers something more than traditional painting: it communicates warmth, there’s something magical in the colours. It’s the material itself, the wool, that even though its used in its raw state – tufts or carded –transmits to the touch a real sensation of purity.”
Layer after layer, colour after colour, without previously drawing any sketch or figurative trace, the artist crates her final composition. Kuliskova doesn’t just use wool however: she also employs other materials or textiles to form a sort of textile collage, and some of her latest experiments have involved applying wool to plexiglass to produce illuminated paintings or lamps.
The work of this young Czech artist undoubtedly inherits the great decorative traditions of Central Europe. Kuliskova’s Belle Époque or Greek women are beautiful and pure, almost cold in their elusive indifference, suggesting the idea of woman as divine – a pagan divinity, however.  Her video-installation “USVIT”, dealing with the theme of birth, was recently part of the presentation of the book Femina Fera by Fabrizio Portalupi, which recounts the pure female essence, from bestial to spiritual, through photographic images.
Hot and cold colours clash  and overlap, often representing opposing or contrasting forces that dominate the mystery of life, as in PROMETHEUS the mythological hero who stole fire from the gods to give it to Man, thus giving him the power to control nature.
Soft and sinuous forms, gently shaded colours, abstract, impalpable figures, purposely lacking in definition, combine to create effects that are wholly original, permeated by a dream-like atmosphere and the artist’s highly sensual, feminine point of view.



LINKS
- www.svetlanakuliskova.com