16 Sep Ribana Szutor’s art is observed not only with the eyes, but also with the soul
When I met Ribana, a few days before a Milan event where some of his works would be featured, a well-defined set of emotions overlapped within me.
I often get to know some people and immediately sense what they are really like or at least, understand a small part of their soul.
With this wonderful artist it was so; beyond her physical beauty that objectively, leaves one breathless, what struck me at our first meeting was foreshadowing how such a beautiful and classy woman could hide within herself such a strong shyness and delicacy of spirit; but there was something else I could not perceive, something stronger and more energetic.
This energy became apparent when I first saw his works, at which moment I realized that all the grit, character, strength and his true personality, which he struggles to show, are poured into his paintings and their inherent meaning.
Ribana Szutor’s painting at a first glance may arouse superficial feelings, such as melancholy and disillusionment, but by observing not only with the eyes, setting aside the first impression one has of the image and interpreting it with the soul, a world of feelings, sensations and emotions such as strength, determination, energy, a veiled eroticism and sensuality opens up, which at first glance may seem totally chaotic but, after a few moments of reflection, acquire an almost sudden order.
His paintings, they all look like different images, transfigured figures, silhouettes of humanoid bodies, evanescent as spirits (perhaps it would be better to say souls), an expressiveness of faces almost non-existent, the use of strong and in most cases not exactly cheerful colors, a mixed painting technique given by the delicacy of the use of oil paint, the strength and materiality of ‘acrylic and the light of resin, make these works a fair compromise between the visible and the invisible world.
As Antoine de Saint Exupèry ‘s fox says in “The Little Prince” – “one cannot see well except with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.”
Usually, what is too extreme, from politics, to art, to music, to the ‘display of one’s sexuality, I don’t like, but in this case the extreme I love, lies precisely in a juxtaposition of what one sees and what one perceives; much the same as it happens many times to people who meet me for the first time–what they see is totally different from what they can (if I allow it) perceive.
Ribana’s peculiarity lies precisely in this, to give an idea of herself that completely deviates from her true being, and that is that of a sensitive but at the same time strong woman, endowed with a sophisticated femininity but who deep down, hides a masculine warrior soul, an energy and a “rage” that can only come out through painting, through decisive and aggressive brushstrokes that do not submit to the dictates of fashion or the codified rules of art.
Ribana’s art deviates completely from the classic aesthetic canons commonly ascribed to works of art, that’s the beauty of it, to fully appreciate it one has to close one’s eyes and let the memorized image pass, between the brain and the heart giving totally a free interpretation of the feelings that particular piece conveys to us.
The echo of Ribana’s works, only for those with the sensitivity to understand it, is transmitted from the body to the soul, passing through the eyes and reaching the heart.