Page 35 - Art Almanac (February 2020)

Ildiko Kovacs

Two Grounds

Eleanor Zeichner

For Ildiko Kovacs, painting begins with a feeling. A particular colour will beckon to her and she
will follow it towards a conclusion, which may take weeks to find. Oil paint is applied directly
to a ground of raw plywood with foam rollers, sinuous lines snaking their way around the field
in complex interweaving strokes. Each day Kovacs begins again, wiping the surface down with
turpentine to leave only a trace of the previous day’s work – sometimes she will even throw a
bucket of turps across to invite a greater element of chance. She will continually rotate the board
to provide herself fresh perspectives on the work (though the rotate function on her smart phone
does help with what can be a strenuous physical task).

This process allows the work to become regenerative and activated, relieving the artist of an
attachment to a particular composition before the work is finished. She continues in this method
until ‘something in the form surprises me,’ evoking the ‘history of what has gone on before.’
Kovacs values a lack of preciousness and self-consciousness in art making, saying, ‘at the end of
the day it’s just painting. It’s getting into that space where the doing takes over.’

This approach belies Kovacs’ extraordinary skill and deftness, and her trust in the process comes
with practice. A major survey titled ‘Down the Line: 1980-2010’, initiated by Hazelhurst Regional

35