Ilona Szalay: Only Lovers Left Alive | Arusha Gallery
Galleries in London are already closing for the summer. It’s the beginning of the dog days, when a city-dwelling art lover needs to rely mainly on air-conditioned public collections rather than the often inadequately ventilated white cubes that surround them. But a few commercial galleries are sticking at it: I found this show, from the Beirut-born, UK-based painter Ilona Szalay, by chance, wandering past on a humid Saturday afternoon.
I found soothing scenes inside; polite milky pinks and blues predominated. According to the gallery, Szalay works on a variety of materials, from tracing paper to LED light. This time around, it’s oil paint on glass.
Sunrise (2024)
This hard reflective backing means the painter doesn’t have the absorbency of canvas to smooth things out. Instead, she needs to sponge on the wash, then obliterate this wash with her figures, using big brushstrokes.
What about the figures? Szalay likes painting women in period dress and animals. Her landscapes are generally craggy and dramatic. There’s a whiff of the gothic novel in her scenes. A pair of works with riders on horseback, pictured above and below, for example.
Untraveled world (2024)
Szalay’s romantic rider is pictured twice, at sunrise and by moonlight. The skies are clear both times. They made me think of an Ann Radcliffe novel, as well as the glowing horse floating along the Seine, that featured in the Olympic opening ceremony I’d watched the day before.
Ilona Szalay: Only Lovers Left Alive is at Arusha Gallery (London). 26 July - 17 August 2024