An image of Proto-Matter

To write several words about the works of Izabela Simunovic Soyo in fact means to turn right around and return to the very beginings. This means both her personal beginings,as well as the beginings of the creation of the art,or rather the beginings of the very creation of the man.

When Izabela began to appear on the Zagreb art scene ten years ago in her first group and one -man shows,her inclination to the elementary and primordial was noted. Her graphic works,and she is primarily graphic artist even when she paints,were based on several forms and figures, totally simplified denuded of all excess, all cultural elements,all that millenia of artistic creation had bequeathed to us. Her expression was more ancient, it began and ended before history,it is placed before begining.

It would be presoumptous to say that she is the first modern artist to penetrate so far into the past.After all,a good part of twentieth century art is based on dialogue with the "primitive" past, one need only look to Piccaso,Miro and so forth,but in contrast to them, from which this represented merely the occasional excursion, Izabela has constructed her entire expression on this pureness of begining. Today,ten years after her begining, it can be seen that this surprising choice has become reality full of life, aquiring complexity while retaining its elementary directness and simplicity. The very procedure of Izabela's workis based on the use of stencils as the basic instrument whose mutual combinations and mutations create in manner of speaking, her compositions. Their area is mono-dimensional,sometimes presented monochromatically, and sometimes trough the overlapping of two or more monochromatic fields,only here and there with certain additional interventions that create an impression of a foreground and background.On these surfaces, or in the spaces between, magical rituals take place,mistic dances of worhipe to some long and forgotten god. What is most provocative from the present-day point of view, and seems to me most interesting in terms of Izabela's future work, is hidden in several works where these "dancers" are transformed into abstract lines and forms, in which their ritual dance turns into a calligraphic dance in some unknown language whose sence and meaning remain entitely unimportant to us in comparison to the beauty of the very form of the symbols.Thus Izabela' expression, founded on certain archetypes,whose strenght is concealed in their coarse elementary nature and the mistery of a magical unmanifested ritual, has achived in a relatively short period the higest level of abstract thought and form,while retaining the consistency of the author's conceptions.

Miroslav Gasparović

Slika Prapoćela

Napisati nekoliko rijeći o radovima Izabela Šimunović zapravo znaći okrenuti se, vratiti se samim počecima. Kako njezinim, osobnim, tako i počecima nastanka umjetnosti, bolje rečeno počecima nastanka čovjeka.

Kada se prije desetak godina Izabela na prvim grupnim i samostalnim izlozbama, počela javljati na zagrebačkoj likovnoj sceni bila je uočena njezina sklonost okretanja elementarnom, primordijalnom. Njezini grafički listovi, a ona je prvenstvano grafičarka, čak i kada slika, bili su utemeljeni na nekoliko formi, likova to jest krajnje pojednostavljenih, ogoljenih od svega suvišnog, svega kulturološkog, svega onog sto su nam mileniji umjetničkog stvaranja namrijeli. Njezin izraz je bio stariji, započinjao je i završavao prije povijesti, on se smjestio prije početka.

Bilo bi preuzetno reći da je ona prvi suvremeni umjetnik koji se okrenuo tako daleko u prošlost. Konačno dobar dio umjetnosti dvadesetog stoljeća bazira se na dijalogu sa "primitivnom prošlosću", sjetimo se samo Picassa, Miroa itd., no Izabela za razliku od njih, kojima su to bili tek povremeni izleti, upravo na toj čistoti početka gradi cjelokupni svoj izraz. Danas, desetak godina nakon njezinog početka uočava se da je taj začudni odabir zazivio punim životom, dobio na kompleksnosti pritom zadrzavši onu elementarnu neposrednost i jednostavnost.

Sam prosede Izabelina rada zasniva se na korištenju matrice kao osnovnog sredstva čijim se međusobnim kombiniranjem i mutiranjem stvaraju, uvjetno rečeno, njezine kompozicije. Njihov prostor je plošan, ponekad riješen monokromatski, ponekad preklapanjem dviju ili vise monokromatskih ploča, tek tu i tamo sa nekim dodatnim intervencijama koje stvaraju dojam prvog i drugog plana. Na tim plohama ili u međuprostorima, odvijaju se magični rituali, mistični plesovi obozavanja nekih pradavno zaboravljenih božanstava. No ono sto je sa danasnje točke gledišta najprovokativnije, a čini se i najinteresantnije za Izabelin budući rad, skriva se na nekoliko listova gdje su ti "plesači" transformirani u apstraktne linije i forme, u kojima se njihov ritualni ples pretvara u kaligrafski ples nekog nepoznatog jezika čiji nam smisao i značenje ostaju potpuno nebitni u poredbi s ljepotom samih formi znakova.

Tako je Izabelin izraz zasnovan na određenim arhetipovima, čija se snaga krila upravo u njihovoj gruboj elementarnosti i misteriju magičnog nepojamnog rituala, u relativno kratko vrijeme dosegao najviše razine apstraktne misli i forme zadrzavši pritom konzistenciju autorskog izraza.

Miroslav Gašparović