Let's suppose, that within the framework of a spontaneous association experiment we express our first thought of the following names:  Wilma, Desert Fox, Ali ...etc.  To a great number of the readers, perhaps the heroes and heroines of cartoon characters' names like Freddy's wife, the little Vuk, or maybe Aladdin as he lets the ghost out of the bottle, will come to mind.  To the readers who watch the news regularly, words like hurricane, military operation or the picture of Middle East will come up.  Or both.

As Nora Soos has based her work on the dual meaning of these names, characters and expressions, the earth shaking natural and man made catastrophes and where sometimes the heroes of stories, or known and adored stars, or the utilization of artistic paraphrases (Ophelia, David) and forcing the confrontation of the above has created her newest work that she has for the first time displayed for the public at the acb Gallery.

This young artist in her twenties, from whom, until now (compared to her age) we could see in numerous exhibitions, we got used to seeing that her interest is based mostly upon her own life style, her environment and its reflection of itself.  To express these simple, mundane themes she utilized as source: fashion, tabloid press and hackneyed clichés.

On her paintings, technically expressive, but at places blotchy gesture-impressions of priming overlaid by vigorous lines of color, are seen in transparent layers.  This manner of placing layers and piling of patterns in and out of each other gives the impression to the viewer as if we were watching multiple paintings simultaneously.  All this is on a large canvas, enjoying the texturing techniques of her art and not mimicking the mirror smooth surface of the pseudo-painting images on the monitor of a computer.

The young artist, using her established techniques has thematically stepped out of her confined world and looked into the "Big World" with all its horrors.  She is doing this through the eyes of a somewhat frightened child who is grieving over the betrayal of her childhood heroes.  Her cherished friends:  the loyal dog, the gentle giant elephant look menacing, the toys are fighting against submachine guns, rockets or the heroes, heroines are retreating in fear, or like Wilma tying to take charge to better organize things. Anyhow, beyond the childhood dreams, as a second layer, the reality of the present day atrocities are always present.  They are important in their efforts to change this, but the acceptance of it is necessary however painful it may be.

The presentation of memory pictures involves more than mere piling of catastrophic scenes, it always links to the points of a subjective world.  If we are looking for the way the pictures link from the art history's point, we will find, that the mundane visual culture, pictures broadcasted by the TV, the emblems used by advertisements, graphic art and the like, tie this work to pop art.

These are shocking pictures, everyone of them a drama in its own right, a big bang drama, yet all this is done sweetly, but strictly for the over sixteen.