Otto Zitko

Expressive lines lead across walls and ceilings, enmeshing the viewer on all sides. The drawings and paintings of Otto Zitko disrupt all settings and break free of any conventional frame. The artist explores the relationship between drawing and space, between the drawn gesture and the solid architectural form in large-scale murals and wall paintings which seem to take hold of the entire room, overwriting and redefining the structure of the space. At first sight, these drawings suggest an immediacy of artistic expression as if this was a manifestation of an excessive performance in space, but in fact this is a representation of immediacy. On closer inspection, the vigorously-drawn gradating lines which sweep over the room prove to have been composed piece by piece. They are in essence dependent on the spatial dimensions they wish to surmount. The resulting brittleness of the expressive gesture no longer permits the presentation of a direct self-expression. Authenticity and subjectivity prove to be constructed and staged.