Kata Kelemen (1952) - Code Language/16.

Kata Kelemen
Code Language/16. - 2001
11”5x15”5 watercolor, crayon, coal
signed: down on the right

Kata Kelemen is a Hungarian artist who graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 1977. She has held several solo and group exhibitions in renowned galleries and museums across Hungary. Kelemen began her career by experimenting with the transparency of various materials and their reactions to different lighting conditions. This exploration is evident in this piece, both in the layering and the materiality of her painted work.

Kelemen’s experimentation results in a striking juxtaposition of constructive and organic approaches. In this work, titled Code Language/16, she layers different translucent materials on top of one another, pressing them using various techniques. After the gluing process, she applies different colors to paint the material. These layers form a kind of unspoken language—evoking either a vanished tribe or a future civilization.

The fictive language Kelemen employs is inspired by Viking rune-stones, which she discovered through historical research (I have included two photos of this inspiration).