2019
White & Weiss Gallery
Bratislava
The complicated visual composition of Nana Mandl, created expressly for this exhibition, characterizes her works, conceptual thinking and formal language. Ideologically, she bases her work in an encounter of the physical and digital world, which mostly influences the younger generation. Her collages respond to this accelerated time, typified by an unrestrained flow of information combined with the symptomatic visual pollution. In her own words, she feels a part of so-called Generation Remix, which has unlimited access to visual archives and media. She chooses from amongst them, combines and deconstructs them. In her collages, from the tiniest all the way to monumental billboard wallpapers, she takes visual material from blogs or advertising, inspired by fashion, pop culture and the old print media, also a using modern style of archiving in the form of computer and mobile screenshots. She steps into the compositions of “stolen” materials with her own drawings, often indistinguishable from their print antecedents, or with her hand embroidery that she might regularly purchase in any sewing shop and use as ready-mades. The intentional contrast of physical and digital work is significantly supported through cutting and subsequent sewing back together of individual parts of the canvas. She takes the encounter of high art and kitsch (as a reaction to the superficiality of our times) further through spatial objects: modern totems connecting different cultures, social strata and historical backgrounds. The lightened visual expression contrasts with the infinite layering of opinions and ideas of the contemporary patchwork society.
Text: Michal Stolárik
Photos: White & Weiss Gallery