Selby, Clyde The Mercury 1 March, 2008

Innocent Idylls Revisited
House of Mysteries
Colville Art Gallery
Price range $1800 – 6000

Even a cursory glance at the work of Zsuzsa Kollo indicates she has a European cultural heritage. She was originally from Hungary before settling in Tasmania a quarter of a  of childhood.

Rekindled, hindsight experiences of fabrics and patterns are often present. Medling with those is a recent trip to Pompeii where she drew inspiration from the tessellated floors, the regularity of arches and the symmetry of brickwork portals. Reactions to this ancient Sleeping Beauty metropolis are linked to her preserved memories of younger years. They are presented in oils on canvas.

Sizes may vary but a consistent quality prevails. Use of colour is also noteworthy, with certain pictures being particularly enhanced by tones of green and turquoise. There is a preponderance of female children, seemingly exercises in self-portraiture. With one exception, the figures in a landscape are looking away. Occassional wistful or winsome boys add variation to the pattern of interlocking sibling relationships, set off by floral designs, grids and illusions as well as the lush ornamentation of nature.

A future juxtaposition of space and time occurs with the use of the occasional Tasmanian setting for these somewhat Jungian interpretations of a dreamlike time.