Irena Kečkeš is a Karlovac-born artist whose exploration of the creative potentials inherent in printmaking techniques, mainly woodcut and linocut, has taken her far away from her homeland. Through Japan and New Zealand to the exotic North Pacific island of Guam, where the work displayed in this exhibition has come from, Irena Kečkeš builds her artistic poetics in a dedicated creative process, examining and encouraging authentic creative deliberations in woodcut form. Globally, she communicates and shares her findings and insights, recognising them in the literature, philosophy and creativity of other artists she works with. Irena has had two solo exhibitions at the Vjekoslav Karas Gallery so far: Otisci radosti (Prints of Joy) in 2002 and Energično, intuitivno, emocionalno (Energetic, Intuitive, Emotional) in 2007. Both exhibitions have made an impression with the enormous positive creative energy emanating from the prints on display, but also with the ingenious placement of the exhibits in space, owning the gallery and transforming it into one never-ending exhibit.
The latest exhibition consists of four recent prints based on woodcut and linocut techniques. As her medium, the artist has chosen canvas, which provides more spontaneity and variability than classic paper. Since 2011, when she started her journey in New Zealand, Irena Kečkeš has taken a special interest in large format expressions, and in spatial printmaking installations. Entering the matrix with her entire body, repeating the movement of cutting into the matrix with her knife with focus, and then manually printing large surfaces using a baren, the artist maintains a strong presence within her work under construction, making the print a trace of her creative meditation, and a challenging invitation to the observer to follow the artists’ energy lines, the vast ways of daydreams she has paved for us, and the mighty force of the river she has unleashed. The prints Daydream: Intimate immensity and River face the observer with the meditative quality of an encounter with an immeasurable strength of spirit. The river motive, so close to local artists, resonates in particular with us in Karlovac, who take great pride in our four rivers.
The other two prints, Bonding (2018) and Beads (2021), the product of a collaboration with Polish printmaker Katarzyna Zimna within the Femigraphic project, represent the other side of Irena Kečkeš’ artistic personality, the one keen on dialogue and on convergence with others in an entirely practical drive to share knowledge and experience, motivate, and spur to action. Bonding is the product of nine hours of the authors’ cohabitation, spent sewing their prints on canvas together for the IMACT 10 exhibition in Santander, Spain. The motive of beads, or necklaces, builds a link between the two authors, who found a shared creative focus in spite of the physical distance separating them. The Femigraphic collective’s exhibited work raises the question of women’s cooperation, mutual recognition, relationships, and empowerment of women artists and artists in general.
Author: Curator Antonija Škrtić
