At the beginning of her career, Maria Chilf tried to explore the world with a kind of scientific attitude, but it soon became clear to her that without intuition and emotions, this would not lead to the right results, because she could not approach the essence of things in this way. In her art, therefore, she gave more space to her own personality and experience, thus validating her observations and works.
A recurring feature of Chilf’s art is a scepticism of cognition, which she expresses, among other things, through the viewer’s uncertainty and the ambivalence of her works in terms of form and meaning. Since 1996, her watercolours have been united by a larger biomorphic motif, with shapes resembling internal organs and body parts, which can be traced back to her interest in biology and medicine. Chilf has a direct and creative relationship with nature, with everyday reality, with her fellow human beings and with herself, and is therefore particularly sensitive to alienated states, the destruction of nature, landscape wounds, laboratory or medical situations, which she expresses, among other things, through the collision of organic, irregular forms with artificial, regular forms, and through the various drawing and painting techniques.
Krisztina Szipőcs