The works seek answers to the following questions: what is the relationship between the rational mapping and cognition of the things around us, and our personal imprint on them? How do our subjective bodily sensations, individual experiences, and hidden parts of ourselves affect the way we see the world? How can we connect with dimensions beyond the human realm, whether it be our own subconscious, our dreams, or non-human entities? The three artists reflect on these questions in their sensual works, rethinking figurative painting.
Starting from a contemporary reinterpretation of landscape painting, Julia Csapó is currently exploring the possibilities and limitations of human cognition and perception. Like the protagonists of Ildikó Enyedi’s new film, she is interested in whether a connection can be formed – and if so, what kind of connection – between humans and non-humans / more-than-human beings. The artist was greatly influenced by sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance, according to which the ideal relationship between humans and the world is based not on dominance or immersion, but on mutual address and response – where both parties touch and transform the other while preserving their own distinctness. The translucent figures visible in her paintings – which simultaneously submerge into, disappear within, and interact with the landscape – evoke this type of connection. Elements and certain natural phenomena are also prominent in the paintings: water or caves are all settings where an encounter with the non-human can occur, while the pink, purple, or bluish-green „membrane bodies“ emphasize a tactile perception in which somatic experience through the body becomes primary.
These cave-like spaces and cavities lead the visitor to the new paintings and drawings of Eszter Kálóczy, whose work often intertwines the depiction of inner processes, memories, and dreams with natural phenomena that symbolize the hidden or subconscious feelings. In her new series, the artist is also inspired by her dreams and their visual world, in which our forgotten and repressed memories surface, in all their fragmentation and confusion. According to Kálóczy, these experiences actively shape our present and how we relate to the world around us: in her works, she strives to make these often difficult-to-verbalize feelings and attitudes visible. In her pastel-colored compositions influenced by Surrealism, figures that attempt to connect with one another yet remain separate are seen, locked within their own inner worlds, as if in a kind of fortress. Yet the movement in the images and the dynamism of the gestures also suggest that the mind, even as a fortress, is dynamic and capable of change: it simultaneously protects and supports the individual so that, while facing their inner fears, they dare to connect with the outside world.
The process of self-discovery, the experience of our own bodies, and their constant transformation take center stage in both Emma Kling’s installations and paintings. The structure of the „snail-shaped changing room“ – familiar from the beaches of Lake Balaton – recurs frequently in her work; in this exhibition, the audience will see a stripped-down, skeletal version of it. The changing room becomes a space for the body’s liminality and metamorphosis, which is simultaneously a safe, private place while situated in public space. This tension between outside and inside, the personal and the public, the protective and the claustrophobic, provides the fragile balance in Kling’s works. The shedding and peeling away of the body’s layers during certain stages of life, and the impact of the associated feelings and frustrations on our daily lives, lead her to explore the motif of the shadow in her practice, where only a kind of imprint of the figures remains visible, and the absence of the body becomes significant. Consequently, Kling’s painterly style is characterized by fluidity, multiple perspectives, and a play with shadows, absence, and negative forms – so that what is not immediately visible, or what remains in shadow (whether from a psychological perspective, referring to our „shadow self“ following Jung, or generally to the invisible work performed by women) is just as important as what is visible. Her objects, meanwhile, step out of the plane of the wall and present all these questions in a form that is both playful and unsettling.
Group exhibition: Inner Spaces by Julia Csapó, Eszter Kálóczy and Emma Kling,
Curated by: Flóra Gadó
Exhibition duration: on view until May 15, 2026
Address and contact:
Rechnitzer Galéria
1054. Budapest, Perczel Mór utca 4
www.rechnitzer.hu
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