Diversity of medicine

Crushed to powder and revived by a chemical reaction slumbering in a pharmakon (drug), irritated by medicinal solvents, transformed by binders and pressed into usable pigment – all this turns drugs, with their blessings to mankind, but also the curse they can inflict on individuals with their terrible side effects, into such a special painter’s pigment.

And this is what the artist makes visible and materializes in her accomplished paintings. Beauty and death, salvation and catastrophe are close together in these breathtaking works. This is due to a more than unusual colour palette, the likes of which the world has never seen before. Monika Kus-Picco has to pay close attention to all the chemical reactions if she does not want to leave the colouristic result of the painting to chance: the cranberry extract in the dietary supplement, the white colour of the white pill, the dark brown colour of the strong oxidising agent potassium permanganate.

The author knows which drugs commonly induce psychotic states – and she paints with these means, as if she wanted to depict a terrible delirium. She pours iodine onto the canvas, cuts open bright red Nurofen capsules and lets their contents drip onto its surface. She paints from the crushed pills and paints pictures from the ointments. The Alzheimer’s relief drugs she has placed on the paper she lets disappear in the sunlight the way a person consumed by the disease slowly disappears.

Each picture has its own unique background, based on knowledge – and even more on real-life experience – of certain drugs used to treat people.

Prof. Dr. Klaus Albrecht Schröder excerpt from the book “Medicine in Colours”

Biography:

Monika Kus-Picco was born in Vienna in 1973; she lives and works in Vienna and Rio de Janeiro. She studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf. In her work, the artist with Brazilian roots explores the expired products of the pharmaceutical industry in order to create lived experiences with these substances and to explore the connections between social systems, gender and regional-cultural differences. Her works draw attention to the mass sale of brightly colored pills in the U.S., as well as to issues of gendered medicine. Her research is interdisciplinary and also explores her own indigenous family history in southern Brazil. Her work has been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions as well as fairs in Vienna, Graz, Salzburg, Paris, Miami, Düsseldorf and Rio de Janeiro. Her works are represented in many public and private collections and museums.

Location: Danubiana, Čunovo, Slovakia
Date: from 16.04.2024 – 02.06.2024
Start: 10:00 – 18:00
Admission:
Adults – 10 €
Family (2 adults and 2 students) – 20 €
Pensioners (over 62 years old) – 5 €
Students – 5 €
Children (under 6 years old) – Free
Danubiana Club Members – Free
Disabled persons, persons over 75 years of age – Free

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