FROM CARDS TO CHAOS
first these cards connected to past
Hungarian past – historical, lived
then mine – experiential, personal
a clobbering sense of loss!
potent painful contrast with the rabid present
pulling towards – in the largest, simplest sense – Chaos!
Another series on found postcards, to segue into work and life in Budapest –
this time a pack of Hungarian trivia game cards picked up in a small shop on Raday Street.
Judging from the low quality offset printing and cheap paper, they must have dated from the ’70’s or ’80’s, just before the change of the era. It’s not the first time I’ve used old printed matter in my work – the pale, low-resolution offset prints powerfully present themselves as visual ghosts from earlier times.
Looking at the Mozi Cards series; remembering how, working with simple white tempera and black ink I wrestled with the illustrated movie scenes of each purple card. My intent was to override or even obliterate these movie stills entirely, while extracting visual components for my own abstract compositions.
In addition to the ink and tempera, I at times used a primitive offset/ monotype process, pressing and rubbing one freshly painted card against another. This was a return to a technique earlier explored in my 2016 Monoprints From Bernecebaráti series. This transference of new forms or textures took the altered images even further from the original print. Yet, humming in the sublayers and of course on the verso, were remnants of the original content.
The Green cards were different. I soon found that the printed portrait busts of writers remained dominant regardless of my attempts to overpower them. I acceded, accepting the presence and concept of the portrait rather than doing battle with it.
Adding cutting and collage to the techniques of the purple cards, these green pieces became quite disturbing – due to a combination of recognizable portrait and process of fragmentation.
Rather than seeing these as collaged pieces coming together to form a disjointed yet recognizable portrait , they can be read as whole images being painfully cut and brutally fragmented.
Rephrased as a larger question: what is the significance of process in my work? Is the gathering and combining, assembling and reassembling of visual and tactile elements solely for the purpose of creating a new whole out of fragments, or conversely, is it also about fragmenting what was once whole?
– Diane Sophrin
Vermont, 8.28.19
BOOK OF CHAOS – II
Breakfast.
Behind the stolid silence
a night of strange murmers
hints allusions memories
mutterings confusions guesses
Chaos.
The Book of Chaos
there, it’s named!
meanwhile between each page
coffee kifli
concerts art cakes liquor
and all the lesser things.
Peel back further still
pulsating beneath
Fear nodding
unknown known
in a sexy new suit.
Now we know
how they felt
before each maelstrom.
– Diane Sophrin
Budapest, 10.16.18
A KÁOSZ KÖNYVE – II
Reggeli.
Az egykedvű csend mögött
különös morajok éjszakája
allúziókat emlékeket, sugdolózásokat
zűrzavarokat találgatásokat sejtet
Káosz.
A Káosz Könyve
tessék, neve is van!
mindezalatt minden egyes oldal között
kávé kifli
koncertek művészet torták likőr
és csupa apró-cseprő dolog.
Hámozd tovább még mélyebbre
alant pulzáló
Félelem bólogat
ismeretlen ismert
egy szexi új öltönyben.
Most már tudjuk
milyen érzés volt
minden egyes roppant örvény előtt.
– translation by Tamás Baranyi
Budapest. (10.16.18).
Diane Sophrin 