MARIKA SZÀRAZ
Artist, designer, teacher, lecturer
Contemporary Tapestry – Fine art – Textile design


Article in the magazine ARTS ANTIQUES AUCTIONS Price Léon-Louis SOSSET ‘96

What are the technical media you are using for your textile representation?

My work is based on a long tapestry experience followed by a research on the « surface to form » relationship. For many years I have been experiencing a new technique which allows an infinite variation of shapes of the woven surface would they be round or with angles. By changing the forms, the parallel threads of the warp change direction as well and create new levels; by the reflexion of light, these levels acquire metamorphosed colours. I am particularly interested in the relationship of structure to light to the point where the medium becomes the very subject.

I feel detachment in your work, can you explain?

« A drawing is worth a hundred words » says the Zen proverb and I believe that mastering a technique implies simplicity. I experience my work as the exteriorisation of internal silence. For me a very simple shape harmonized with empty space gives the impression of the song of silence, of harmony, of serenity. There is no duality or conflict between the elements. I experience the sensation it gives all the more intensely that its content is more laconic. Its message is so evident that trying to explain it could only falsify it. This form invites the spectator to participate instead of just looking.

Looking at your work, I thought of Zen gardens...

I am pleased you mention this. In fact one finds the image of these parallel lines in the dry gardens. I feel close to these Zen gardens which give a feeling of calm, happiness and harmony. But this linear expression and this change in parallel lines are the effect of weaving and the subject of my research. I did not create them so that they would look like something already existing. However, if you think of Zen gardens as an artistic expression, simplicity, respect hidden behind appearances or purity of a world to which man belongs but which he does not control, then I agree with you.

How is this type of work leading you to a kind of initiation?

In many cultures, weaving has often been associated to rites and sacred ceremonies. The rhythmic horizontal linear gestual movement is a form of writing. This private moment of silence, this personal contact with the medium being continually shaped by ritual gestures is a sort of body meditation. This kind of work ressembles the perpetual movement without beginning or end; each line gives birth to the next and develops not only in a linear fashion but engraves itself in the depth of the material. The beating of my heart, my breathing mix with the monotonous gestures closely linked to the flowing of time. The future, the past become illusions and the present an eternal reality. It is the sensation of going nowhere in an intemporal moment of peace and solitude. The joy of a great trip, a crossing in the woven surface within which the routes are more important than the destination.


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