Gertrude Honzatko-Mediz
1893-1975 (AUSTRIA)
GERTRUDE HONZATKO-MEDIZ WAS THE DAUGHTER OF THE AUSTRIAN ARTIST COUPLE EMILIE MEDIZ PELIKAN AND KARL MEDIZ. SHORTLY AFTER HER MOTHER'S DEATH, SPIRITUALIST SÉANCES WERE HELD AT HER AUNT'S HOUSE, AT WHICH A MEDIUM ESTABLISHED CONTACT WITH HER MOTHER. SOON, THE 16-YEAR-OLD GERTRUDE HERSELF EXPERIENCED MEDIUMISTIC TRANCE STATES IN WHICH SHE COMMUNICATED WITH HER MOTHER AND OTHER “SPIRIT FRIENDS” ON THE OTHER SIDE, UNDER WHOSE GUIDANCE SHE BEGAN TO MAKE DRAWINGS. IN A REGULAR SPIRITUALISTIC EXCHANGE WITH HER MOTHER, A KIND OF COLLABORATIVE EFFORT BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF IMMANENCE, THE MOTHER GAVE HER, AS IT WERE, DRAWING LESSONS FROM THE AFTERLIFE.
THE MEDIUMISTIC WORK OF HONZATKO-MEDIZ SUGGESTS, THAT SHE DID NOT REGARD HERSELF EXCLUSIVELY BEING JUST AN INSTRUMENT OF POWERFUL SPIRIT GUIDES WITHOUT AUTONOMY BUT THAT HER ART WAS LARGELY PRODUCED IN COLLABORATION WITH DISEMBODIED ENTITIES. THERE ARE SEVERAL HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF THE NOTION OF MEDIUMISTIC ART AS AN AUTONOMOUS COLLABORATIVE INTERACTION OF DRAWING AND PAINTING MEDIUMS WITH THEIR SPIRITUAL GUIDES.
The Medium’s Medium, The Gallery of Everything (London) 2019
Plants of the Soul: Floral Fantasies between Symbolism and Outsider Art, Wilhelm Hack Museum (Ludwigshafen) 2019
Flying High: Women Artists of Art Brut. Bank Austria Kunstforum (Vienna) 2019
Alma: Mediums and Visionaries. Es Baluard Museum (Palma de Mallorca) 2019
Galleria De Faveri Arte (Feltre) 2007
Donne simboliste: Le misteriosofie di Gertrude Honzatko-Mediz e Nina Karasek, Museo del Risorgimento e della Reistenza (Ferrara) 2007
Pilar Bonet Julve, "Dell'occulto e del meraviglioso: Jane Ruffié, Margarethe Held, Gertrude Honzatko-Mediz," Osservatorio Outsider Art, 19, 2020 (pp. 68–83)
Elmar R. Gruber, "Flying Higher: Mediumistische Künstlerinnen." In: Ingried Brugger, Hannah Rieger and Veronika Rudorfer (eds.), Flying High: Künstlerinnen der Art Brut. Heidelberg, Berlin: Kehrer, 2019 (pp. 232–235)
Gertrude Honzatko-Mediz. Eichendorff. 12 Radierungen zu seinen Gedichten, ca 1915
Roberto Roda, "Il simbolismo medianico di Gertrude Hozatko-Mediz." In: Roberto Roda (ed.), Eredità del simbolismo: Mitologie, etnografie, esoterismi. Exhibition catalogue. Mantova: Sometti, 2007 (pp. 235–49)
