A picture by Zdenka Rusova is a greenhouse, where we witness life processes in full operation. One can perceive it as an expression of the blind necessity that governs all matter according to physical and biological laws. Or one can find examples of the will to change and development that lies in all organisms and that creates the endless pattern of coincidences that our existence is built up from. The perception must be colored by the spectators' own basic views. But we also don't get away from the attitude that started it all, the original material that Zdenka Rusova has given us to work on. That material is therefore open to interpretation, because it expresses a search by the artist. There are no answers in these pictures, rather questions. But they still give us something to hold on to. Basically, they show a completely sober attitude, a willingness to be concrete and clear. Zdenka Rusova can be almost provocative in her belief in a "graphic" representation of events and feelings that we usually abstract away in diffuse concepts.

We see it in the earliest works, where it is often about states, psychological tensions expressed in large human heads. Gradually, the formal possibility of expression in these minds became more refined, the individual became more universally valid. The forms became parts of situations that told about human relationships.

In the latest pictures, it is as if we have penetrated the forms to understand what it is that drives them, what internal events they are the bearers of. They have become landscapes in constant change, monumental organisms in growth and decay. There is drama in the meeting between smoldering darkness and sparkling light, blood-red tailgates and silver shimmering forms, jagged openings and tight closure, relentless ascent and compelling heaviness. These conflicts form a dynamo of never-released tensions. And all the while the visual narrative is kept very close to something we can recognise, we can feel it as something close and personally experienced. This physical immersion in the images can often trigger reactions of fear and pity. Because even though Zdenka Rusova utilizes a highly developed technical skill and a formally well-calculated picture structure, our impression is dominated by an alluring human warmth. The images possess something of the mystery of living life, in this non-stop change that we witness there is always a hint of a half-forgotten past and an unknown future.

Hans Jakob Brown