Mother Rome: Marta Czok's works of art on display at Villa Borghese

The topic currently developed by Marta Czok deals with Rome, namely Mother Rome. The works recall the history of this city, focussing on the present, which is not that rosy, I would say. The exhibition is named after the homonimous 2.4 meter-high totem painting, composed of joint canvases where today's reality -- made of protests and demonstrations, tourists, careless inhabitants, and rich courtiers --  is portrayed in the upper level. Underneath, however, into the underground cellar (once an awesome place), the classical and monumental Rome sits alone, abandoned and literally walked on by a present that does not recognise her importance, anymore.

The paintings are various and different, even if a leitmotiv made of chromatic nuances and mixed acrylic and graphite technique.

The grey and/or dark red background are present in most of the works on display and integrate the drawn figures, almost all in black and white (graphite). Grey is the colour of bad weather, sadness, and heaviness: a threatening cloud that envelops the subjects of these pieces. The dark red recalls the colour of blood, but also the sunset or -- as pointed out by Diana Alessandrini, curator of the exhibition -- “tramonto non di un solo giorno ma di un’intera epoca” ("sunset not for a single day, but for an entire era"), referring to the past glory of Rome. Alessandrini is right when she says that "Marta Czok's art touches and leaves a trace", a trace that is remarkable, indeed.

As regards the style, Marta Czok "rows against the mainstream. She is so detached from contemporary research on the use of materials and innovative artistic language, and points right at the retrieval of traditional techniques“. With reference to the content, I would say that she may be considered as a modern Aristophanes, who uses images instead of words. In her paintings, Marta Czok dares to unveil the distortions and injustice of the modern society and spares no one, included the high prelates sharing out an attractive chocolate cake in the painting Temptation, the only one where gold replaces grey and red.

I found very interesting also the painting Virgin faces, a work of 2010 composed of two parts: the one on the left, with 18 sections in three rows, each containing a Virgin face portrayed according to the ancient artistic tradition; and the one on the right, completely dark grey, that seems to swallow Mary's faces, like a black (or grey) hole.