Ildikó Kalapács laughs easily and often, and when she laughs, the joy-filled sound bursts forth, breaking open and inviting you to join in. Her home studio is filled with light, and her work is striking for its bright and vibrant colors.

But the layers below the sunny surface are more complex.

Kalapács (say “kahl-uh-PAHSH”) grew up in Hungary, in the mid-sized city of Szeged, during the 1960s and 1970s, when the country was under the influence of the Soviet Union. She came to the United States at the age of 22 — and that was 22 years ago, she points out: “I’m now balancing out,” she laughs.

Not surprisingly, her work [3] explores identity — both cultural and personal — and the layers of memory, experience and storytelling that we use to forge an identity. She opens “Domestic Patterns,” a solo exhibition of sculptures and paintings, this week at the Kolva Sullivan Gallery. The human body figures prominently in her work, and each piece — whether two-dimensional or three — is built of layers and patterns.

The sculptures are the heads of women — real women, Spokane women — created life-size from clay as the models sat for her. Each gray or beige head is adorned with medallions and ribbons from Hungarian folk culture: some ribbons are embroidered in rich blues and reds, some are jewel-toned satins emblazoned with words and even poems. The faces are intimate and individual, yet their eyes are closed — they invite contemplation, not communication. Resting on their sides or backs, the heads look vulnerable, even tragic perhaps. The colorful ribbons may be full of life, but the faces are definitely in repose. Kalapács likens the heads to recovered bits of sculpture from antiquity.

“They’re kind of like leftovers from an era,” she says. “Or, more menacing, maybe a chopped-off head. They are fragments.”

The heads mark a return to the classical sculpting techniques that Kalapács learned in Europe, as well as a more personal kind of expression.

“I feel that life — and the human body — is really so fragile, and clay really reflects that,” she says. “Clay is something very pliable, but it speaks to me, it’s more about the process.”

Kalapács selected 14 women to be models for the heads, and she chose women who would be open to sitting for an hour-plus while she studied their faces in intimate detail. “These are my friends, very dynamic women,” she says. “I tried to select women who are very progressive, like I am, and also who’d feel comfortable sitting there for me, because sometimes I’d get up in their face.”

The models range in age from 23 to 59, she says, with faces that become the palette of identity: the past is right there, etched in laugh lines, worry wrinkles, sun damage and the distinctive characteristics of genetics.

“I have a different concept of beauty,” she says. “I like strong women — I mean, physically strong women. Or [faces with] quirky characteristics. Even in ugliness, I see some beauty.”

The 14 heads rest in the center of the gallery; surrounding them, 14 paintings hang on the gallery walls. Each painting has layers of images, integrating bold, primary colors, decorative patterns, words — in English, Hungarian, Russian and Japanese — and the human body, whether in paint or in formal photographic portraits.

“I wanted to honor all the cultures that help me be who I am,” she says, “and language is a big part of it. Language and identity, they are linked.”

The colors and patterns stem from Kalapács’ deepest memories, from growing up in Hungary during the Soviet era, living in gray, seemingly featureless concrete-block apartment towers that Kalapács playfully calls “the rabbit holes.” Amid the bleak sameness and conformity, people sought out splashes of color — in gardens, in cut flowers, and in the intricately embroidered ribbons and dresses of traditional Hungarian folk dancers.

“When I grew up, even if you didn’t have money, you bought some cut flowers with your last pennies, because it brought some brightness in your life,” she says. “The flowers would be on your kitchen table, and you look at it, and you feel good.”

Underneath the color washes are swirls and whorls and lines, created with print rollers used in Eastern Europe to stencil walls and floors. Often, floating within the colors are words; the topmost layers are figures or structures or suggestions of moving water. The layers flow together to become assemblages of identity.

“It’s not just the physical layers, but these are culture layers, too,” she says. “Basically, this is my background, so to speak — literally, my cultural background.”

The figures in the paintings bring to mind the physicality of Thomas Hart Benton [4]’s murals [5] — which celebrated common working people in the America of the 1930s — but without Benton’s graphic realism. Kalapács’ figures float in a dream-like whirl of colors, patterns, words and symbols. Taken together, the layers — in both the sculptures and the paintings — link past with present, the intimacy of memory with the universality of the human condition, and concepts with personal relationships.

“[The heads] are physical fragments, and [the paintings] are cultural fragments,” she reflects. “Visually, the sculptures and paintings are opposite, but they’re two parts of me.”

“Domestic Patterns” by Ildikó Kalapács will be on display at the Kolva Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams St., from June 5-26. Gallery hours: Thursdays-Fridays from 11 am-5:30 pm; Saturdays from 11 am-4 pm. Opening reception: Friday, June 5, from 5-9 pm. Call 462-5633.