Trying to get there
Elisabeth Czihak feels at home with little means. She creates worlds of black and white: black ink on white paper. These pieces always have something very subtle, silent about them, sometimes interspersed with stronger sounds. By and large the character of these works is governed by large surfaces, untouched zones covered by lines so that the expansive, the untouched nature remains. It is as if the artist’s drawing pen were constantly on the lookout but at the same time anxiously trying to hide a secret.
Lines have been drawn on to the white sheet, lines that can condense into solid formations. Yet even in the dark, cloud-like accumulations some of the white shimmers through like an light dots shimmering evenly in the black. The condensations dissolve on the fringes, becoming sporadic lines -- which in turn lead to other tangled balls. No end in sight anywhere. One merges with the other, the balls remain isolated or condense again forming families of balls.
In her works Elisabeth Czihak widely opens the gates of fantasy. Whoever is used to keeping their home tidy may be reminded of the dust bunnies, the life-like creatures created from dust, hair and fibers drifting over the floor like clouds through the sky. Of course, this also evokes clouds, cloud-like formations. Or hair, fine fibers blowing in the wind. Or algae, mysterious beings that drift in the expanses of the ocean. All sorts of images emerge -- images of nature, drifting, moving, cloud-like beings that are tender but also threatening.
There is yet another option. The drawings could be seen as the traces of a hiker. Of restless movement always followed by a return, staying put in one place, as if someone were digging into something untouched and trying to find support by condensing erratic movement into a moment of rest. As if someone were continuously returning to the same place to strike roots but then always departing anew, allowing one cloud to emerge next to the other. Ever new attempts to get there. Yet none that is sustaining. New worlds continue to emerge. Some drift almost lost in white. Until everything falls silent. And silence prevails.
Gustav Schörghofer, 2006