Kopasz Tamás

“I create something not because somebody needs it. At one time I loved to draw, but now I cannot imagine sitting down and pulling lines, shaping tonalities. I had a period based on factures, that time I made pictures from organic matters. I did not use even paints. Blue vitriol, chloride of lime, golden mica, ferric chloride… – he shows- I burned glues on it, even pressed hair and strawberry jam. They often ask: why strawberry jam? “ “For you have had only this at home” – we answer in chorus

. “And why the hair? General belief is that hair cutting is an ancient symbol of separation. But I did not know this that time.” At high school, he wanted to study graphics, but enrolled to be sculptor. At the College already his major was painting.

Handel’s music is played. “I probably like it, because the Baroque music is organic as well, building on contradictions, parts are spiraling around, one is sometimes lost dissolving in the fugues, then, abruptly, all instruments tune up to the topic.” The music CD expires, but in no time we ask him to start one of his own composition. “Surely you use computer. Did you do music? No? Then you will do!”

I saw his painting at an exhibition of contemporary artists. It was the most exciting object. I slowly observed that I was not able to pass by, my eye was sliding on the colours.

He never decides when to paint beforehand. Canvasses and paints are heaping. Meanwhile, the life as usual: teaching, exhibitions, music. Then the right day arrives… “I become unrestful, walking and fussing around all day. As I observed, I start to paint around 10 o’clock evening. That time nothing disturbs me.”

He attacks the canvass in extasy, with hands in rubble gloves, with brushes. “Finishing the intensive fight, I get tired as weight-lifters after 2 minutes. Usually I do not remember what I had been thinking of. I know the work is done, because I am happy and I cannot add anything to the artwork. Then I sit down against it on the armchair, looking at it 2-3 hours.”

“Once a group visited me. One of the ladies complained, quite irritatedly, why I do not finish my paintings. We started to talk: the empty parts I leave highlight the composition, motifs can get air from these omittings. At the end, she stayed for the longest. While arguing a lot, she was the mostly interested.”

The greatest praise comes unexpectedly. One day a visitor was accompanied by his teenager daughter. That time the designer jeans were scarce and expensive, but she really wanted one. The father’s offer was one jeans or two small pictures. She chose the pictures.

Talking about the creation of sculptures, he notes: “ I have very good neighbours”.

He likes young people. “These children know how to draw very well. My job is to shepherd them where to go further, and which way has a dead end. “ He recently patricipated in a group exhibition of contemporary artists at the Yogyakarta Art University in Indonesia. There is a symbiosis of every branch of arts, starting from music, fine arts, to the lanscape arts.” We asked: what is that? “ Just one example. In the centre of the campus there is a huge, beautiful old tree. We were joking, that they surely planned the university buildings around this tree. It turned out that this was the truth. “ Perhaps the world works in this way!

13/4/2011 Budapest

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www.kopasztamas.hu