One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by becoming aware of the darkness.

(after Carl Gustav Jung, 1875–1961)

Longer, brighter days—at first glance, this sounds like a simple promise: more light, more lightness, more zest for life. (…) In fact, the title evokes that familiar springtime formula that recurs year after year: the first rays of sunshine cause plants to blossom and wildlife to come to life. The warmth of the light flows through us into every pore and entices us outdoors. This awakening, this sigh of relief after a cold and often gloomy winter hibernation, this long-awaited glimmer of hope seems like a new beginning for the soul.

But we all realize that where there is much light, there is always much shadow. And as we know, it is precisely at the threshold between day and night that the most dreamlike illusions arise. (…)

Her works, in which colors and shapes blur into one another in an almost psychedelic manner and hints of contours are stronger than detailed formulations, unfold a peculiar attractiveness coupled with ambivalence. They immediately draw the viewer into a pull, as if another, deeper level of reality were opening up behind the smooth surface of the image. Silhouettes of figures and situations appear familiar and at the same time distant, like set pieces illustrating fragments of memory that can never be fully grasped or held onto. (…)

Kozak’s painting touches on the surrealist tradition, as shaped by Max Ernst, for one: composing fantasy images in which the familiar tips over into the strange and emotional worlds take on a mystical form. Kozak’s own individual painting style has a similar collage effect. It consistently oscillates between figurativeness and formal abstraction, but not in a hazy way; rather, it is permeated by an intuitive approach that allows us to sense more between the impasto layers of paint than what is visible to the naked eye. As a result, her paintings appear like painted interiors of intermediate states: between twilight and darkness, between heaven and hell, between departure and surrender. (…)

In contrast to the title of the exhibition, the images by Maria Kozak on display are anything but cheerful mood pieces with a more or less muted color palette. They are pictorial explorations of transition—reflections of emotional states. And that is precisely why they touch us so deeply: because they do not seek the human in the unambiguous, but in contradiction, where light and shadow exist simultaneously.

Perhaps it is precisely this insight that provides a sustainable interpretation reflected in Maria Kozak’s work: never be too sure, remain open, always start afresh, explore traditional boundaries, even if that means having to step out of your comfort zone. The quintessence of this alchemy of change is, in an “enlightened” sense, the art of living—and of loving.

By Corinna Steimel