“I don’t mind the graffiti on the back, I don’t even mind the odd tag on my painting, somehow it all goes together.”
In Greta Ida Csatlò's painting the opening of the wall is thwarted by the anti-hero "Sonic", who promises a future of war and destruction. In her work, the eternal struggle between good and evil takes place.
Greta Ida Csatlòs in the interview
Greta Ida Csatlòs is a German multimedia artist with Hungarian roots. She now lives on Majorca (Spain). Her Wall painting “Sonic Malade” shows the US video-game anti-hero Sonic alongside other figures that represent the American and Soviet sides of Berlin and the eternal fight between good and evil.
In Greta Csatlòs’ painting “Sonic Malade” a video-game figure rushes across the picture plane in front of other US pop-cultural characters, including Batman and the Joker. They stand for the American side of Berlin. The abstract plain behind the Wall in the painting and the bodiless figures stand for the Soviet side. Csatlòs wanted to address the medial defeat of the Soviet Union that coincided with the fall of the Wall. The painting portrays the long-awaited opening of the Wall as frustrated by Sonic, who indicates a future of more wars and destruction.
Csatlòs has Hungarian roots. Her parents left Hungary in the 1960s, probably for West Germany. In the 1990s, Csatlòs ran the Sonic Malade art agency in Berlin with her partner David A. Line and published a city magazine. Csatlòs and Line also produced over 20 LPs with the gothic pop band Untoten, the last of which appeared in 2010. Csatlòs’ oil paintings have been exhibited in Leipzig and Berlin, among other places. Today the artist lives on Majorca where she runs an art gallery.