Tropical Gems

It is under the snowy roofs of Vienna that Ida von Szigethy paints her exotic paradises. This nomadic artist travels the geographical world, but also traverses the realms of imagination.

Her trip to Réunion Island inspired a number of paintings that are precious in terms of material (the gold background), mysterious and tropical in composition, and, above all, full of a fresh and charming sense of humor.

Her works on the tropical theme are paradoxically “exotic” for those who live on the island, for what comes through most of all in her painting is a delicate freshness brought from the northern climes.

Her tropical canvases are not distinct from her other work, a coherent opus of elegant expression characterized by rich materials and generosity of forms and colors. Ida von Szigethy mixes, subtly, dream and reality in a language that is symbolic, mythical, indeed mystical, as if in search of a hidden truth. A bit like in the refined and lyrical universe of her forbear, Gustav Klimt. In this way, she affirms an obvious filiation by heart and soul.

The gravity and austerity of certain themes treated by Ida von Szigethy seem at times, completely dissolved into ornamentation and decorative refinement. It is as if they are shaded, undramatized. But, above all, it is a limitless and cordial sense of humor that is clearly the essential contribution of this smiling artist.

Caroline de Fondaumière Director of the Artotheque St Denis, Réunion 2005