Judit Navratil Beyond Tiger Whiskers

"It all starts with a line: it flashes on the screen before the words are formulated. It's a tabula rasa plus, the idea is in the process of being born, we're almost to the point of activity, we're just waiting for the momentum, the inspiration to put this idea we have into some form. Or even to form it into a picture as Judit Navratil does: the starting point of every creation is a line.

This line can be ritualistic, as in the usual practice at the University of Fine Arts, where everyone draws a certain first line, but where it curves further, what it becomes, depends on personal interest. It can be ironic, like the controversial images of the yogi smoking a cigarette, which is closely linked to the critique of urban living conditions and consumerism that is an important motif in Judit Navratil's work. It can also be playful, like the tiger whiskers peeping out from under a polo. We catch a glimpse of it and in our minds we already draw the line to the striped fur coat, but it could also be an illusion: the tiger is only in our imagination.

In Judit Navratil's Beyond Tiger Whiskers she populates the exhibition space with a similar playfulness with flora and fauna, fractals and pattern systems and many other lovely anthropomorphised creatures. The drawings, photographs, animations and watercolours in this large-scale survey exhibition, however, appear at first glance to be colourful and cherished images of a child's world; stepping closer and taking a close look at the works, which often depict the world from a bird's eye view, reveals a social critique in the subtle colours of the watercolours: contrasting mass production and factory towns with overflowing, colourful psychedelic dreams.

So it's worth getting closer!"

Szilvia Nagy cultural anthropologist