Ilona Jetmar
Through her art practice, Ilona Jetmar continues to investigate how a contemporary art practice might facilitate a sense of home and belonging for an Eastern European born immigrant growing up in Melbourne’s Hungarian diaspora. The identity of a child of diaspora is shaped by transferred memory through family archival materials such as family stories, objects, photographs and re-staged cultural practices. These works, as a part of a growing body, addresses these issues in the re-imagining, re-contextualising and re-presenting of these family archival materials through the medium of painting.
In her personal experience, growing up in Australia after emigrating from Europe led Jetmar to observe the reification of cultural practices by those in the Hungarian diaspora. This acts as a key prompt in her recovery and representation of objects and memories taken from family archival materials, as Jetmar's practice looks to test the validity of memory and its interaction with a new place. Through the artist's contemporary art practice, Jetmar attempts to reconcile and connect with a lost heritage whilst revealing the dislocated cultural practices of this diaspora. This not only works to test her own foundations in this but to interrogate Jetmar's belongingness in her adopted country.
Click here for artwork by Ilona Jetmar
Exhibitions at Tacit Art
2024 Sequence#1
Time alters memory until only a flash remains – a flash of colour, a flash of light, a flash of pain. Imagery whether still or moving helps us to reminisce of a time past but they do not necessarily help us to remember the exact event. They show we were there, but they show a perspective that only others can attest to since we can never see ourselves in the moment in this way. Memory is like that – it is more connected with emotions, more connected with our bodily experience than really remembering being a part of the actual event. The memory of this event for me has reduced to flashes of colour, flashes of light and the memory of pain now an embodied experience that causes me to shy away from the same type of shoes.
2018 Making Sacred
This body of work represents an ongoing investigation into how a contemporary art practice might facilitate a sense of home and belonging for an Eastern European born immigrant growing up in Melbourne’s Hungarian diaspora. The identity of a child of diaspora is shaped by transferred memory through family archival materials such as family stories, objects, photographs and re-staged cultural practices. These works, as a part of a growing body, addresses these issues in the re-imagining, re-contextualising and re-presenting of these family archival materials through the medium of painting.
Exhibitions
solo
2024 Sequence#1 - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2018 Making Sacred - Tacit Art, Melbourne
Punctum - Deakin Art Gallery, Melbourne
2014 Refraction Select - Drum Theatre, Dandenong
Refraction - Walker St Gallery, Dandenong
2008 Light Chasing - McCulloch Gallery, Flinders
group
2025 Summer Salon - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2023 Artbox - Tacit Art, Melbourne
Waverley 9x5 Art Prize - Sydney (2nd Place)
Hawkesbury Art Prize - Purple Noon Gallery, Sydney
TACIT Still Life [Redux] - Tacit Art, Melbourne
Bound Pigment: Celebrating Paint - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2022 TACIT Still Life Prize - Tacit Art Melbourne
SUBSTRATE 22 - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2021 TACIT Still Life Prize - Tacit Art, Melbourne
Costume - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2020 20[2020] - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2019 9 x 5 - Woollahra Art School, Sydney
2018 Missing - The Project Space, Geelong
2016 Still in Progress - Deakin Art Gallery, Melbourne
2014 Challenge - Boxhill ArtSpace, Melbourne
Local - Bunjil Place, Melbourne
2013 She - Walker St Gallery, Dandenong
2011 Discovery - Deakin Art Gallery
2010 Emerging Artist Award - Walker St Gallery
Inspired - Heritage Hill Museum, Dandenong
2008 Summer Show - McCulloch Gallery, Flinders
Inspired - Heritage Hill Museum