Nemere Réka

.I was born in Budapest. My mother is German. I was two years old when we moved to Germany. After the maturity and a basic art course in London my father suggested attending the Budapest Academy of Arts. I returned to Hungary in 1989. The level of the art education attracted me, being more classical as in Germany that time. At my academy time I painted expressive abstract images. Around 1994 my gestures became empty. My visual world underwent a transformation. I wanted to learn thoroughly the painting.                                                                      .                                                                                                                                                         .

My present figurative imagery bases upon this decision. I have painted still lifes in winter, landscapes in summer. I choose oranges. These are simple objects, at a first glance. I studied their shapes in light, in backlight, with white background, in white environment. That time my landscapes were made outside, “plein air”. Later I started to use photos as well.

In my visual perception I can discover some relationship with the one of Caspar David Friedrich, painter. The pictures of this important artist, representing the German romanticism of the 19th century, are pervaded by the transience and melancholy. He mainly painted landscapes, sometimes with ruined churches. In the scenery people appear as figurants, but they are the in the centre of the pictures, presenting the human relations to the God and the Infinity. The turn-away figures, frequently depicted, have symbolic meaning as well. In my latest series I deal with football courts, players, and spectators. In several pictures I depict turn-away viewers, I am impulsively attracted to this solution.

Apart from the abstract expressionism, the minimalism affects my work. Despite the figurality of my pictures, you can detect some abstracting compression there. Each theme is maturing even up to 5-10 years in me. I do not start a new series until exhausting an idea. Themes were varied, but my partially structured, partially free compositions remained. In my ouvre these two poles costitute a basic tension.

Studying the Margaret Bridge I noticed the barges, and later I had thoroughly a look at the barges in the large Duisburg port. The water is flickering a little at the dark hulls, just as in the reality. I recorded the whale-shaped ferries filled with cars at Amsterdam and Zeebrugge. It is said that my German origin is observable, for I paint Northern lights. Maybe, because I noticed the barges at North, but not of my family roots. As an experiment, I transferred a container barge, seen at Duisburg, to the Danube. The water became warmer, brown and green; the sky is not so white, plausibly it is in Hungary.

I have regularly traveled to Germany. Staring ahead, sitting at the wheel. Once the lansdcape flashed along below the shining sun, once the wiper smeared the dirt on the windscreen, trucks overtook the others, highway bridges came and went… One afternoon I drove along the Rákóczi Street. Across the dirty windscreen I recorded the street together with the Klotild Palace. I made a painting from this photo; this was the method of creating my highway and travel pictures.

The home-window series started with the autumn birch leaves, glittering at my kitchen window. Window-posts are dividing the wiev, and create a distance between the spectacle and the spectator. I painted blocks of flats as well, a pine branch sagging from left. Maybe a little Japanese flavour. I like the large pictures, producing a kind of movie effect, they almost swallow you. I paint several pictures parallelly, not to get tired to work on one, because this way the picture could be unanimate.

I was engaged in the window series, when we were accomodated at an artist’s colony in Slovakia, where were two soccer fields. I was caught by the abundant greens, by the contrasts of the plants and geometry, and the colourfully dressed players. Instead of window-posts the guard-net poles are appearing.

Through the soccer players, I started to paint people. It seems to be as figurants, but their positions on the field are meaningful. I did not paint the heroic or sporting side of the football. In the multilevel space the wiev is generally static, perhaps reflecting the social relations. For example, depicting rigid figures in a picture, the dictature of the bureaucracy came to my mind, so I gave this as a subtitle. Anyway, I like to watch football. I was in trouble when Bavarian (with a coach of Barcelona) met with Barcelona. I really did not know to pull for which team.

20/5/2013 Budapest