Maria Szakats
UNTITLED II, 2024
Mohair embroidered on cotton toile
20.5 x 28 cm
8 1/8 x 11 in.
8 1/8 x 11 in.
Unique
Courtesy of the artist and Brooke Benington
In UNTITLED, Maria Szakats draws inspiration from Agnolo Bronzino's Portrait of Giovanni de’ Medici as a Child (1544), reimagining the young boy cradling a small bird. Through the technique of...
In UNTITLED, Maria Szakats draws inspiration from Agnolo Bronzino's Portrait of Giovanni de’ Medici as a Child (1544), reimagining the young boy cradling a small bird. Through the technique of embroidering and brushing mohair over a printed image, Szakats renders the scene with a hazy softness, creating an ephemeral, dreamlike effect. The cropped image, which highlights the child’s hand and the bird, suggest that the viewer is peeping at the scene as if the child and the bird are enveloped in an otherworldly dimension of memory or myth. The fragile bird nestled in the child’s hand hints at themes Szakats explores throughout her exhibition Romance Apocalypse: care and control, intimacy and vulnerability, hinting at the delicate balance at the core of romantic relationships.