Exhibition > Past > Haus Gallery

Haus Gallery 31.01.2006-03.03.2006

Season

Nature has always been one of the favourite themes of figurative arts. The classical artist's myth describes us a middle-aged gentleman, wandering between fields and meadows, wearing on a side of his head a beret against cold. Exactly this way we like to imagine artists: they walk in nature for days, but they are not interested in its scientific value, discovering of new species and their impassionate description, but these are the emotional highlights they are interested in: the sunset, a green meadow, a baby deer drinking at a spring. Most probably one of the reasons could here be the understanding that as nature seems to us fortuitous and spontaneous, also art is something bohemian and free.

Proceeding from this concept we also assume that the description of nature should be done with a large brush, opening of vast panoramas or by pulling off side-screens from hidden corners and displaying them this way to the human eyes. People are not usually allowed to step into pictures in order to try to render the impression of intact, sincere and honest character of the nature. Here emerges a paradox: from one side there is the hope that art would reflect us nature as something extremely natural – as something that is not being spoilt by the sins of the human civilization and culture, which is being perceived as something “insincere”, even artificial. From another hand land- and seascapes are traditionally the most inspiring ones, depicting something supernatural, extraordinary, unbelievable – stormy seas, sun over Rouen, a perfect view which is not being spoilt by a single leafless tree. But these are pictures which can not be found in the nature. These are pictures which are telling us lies.

Drawings by Jarõna Ilo are suitable both to illustrate a school textbook and to be exposed in an exhibition hall. She is not too picky at minor details and scientific, but she does select her motifs from strangely concealed places that are quite odd for an artist to visit. Ilo has also suppressed colours which are so characteristic to the nature and that should certainly inspire and enchant an artist. We may feel that the picture, being offered to us by Ilo, has pauperized its object, has tarnished it. But still.

But still Ilo is the most exact and honest one. She is an artist, who is able to concentrate on the most significant, who possesses a strange emphatic ability that does not start attacking the already existing figures, but is trying to find their nature. For the nature a deer on a meadow is just a contingency. Ilo digs into details, finding from there both the joy of drawing and meaningful challenges. It seems of importance for us not to take the present exhibition as simply an extraordinarily deeply absorbed exposition of nature drawings. The form in series gives us the hint that Ilo does not work spontaneously, but in a systematic manner, gradually, without giving up. And at a certain moment these works start to form a meditative line. By digging herself into the details of nature, Ilo also sets into rhythm her personal perception of the world. At the exhibition she is already doing it with all of us.

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