Laying in the chip-lined coffin devoted to the memory of the victims, none of the workers standing around him laughed, even if the situation was bizarre. It is not trendy nowadays to deal with the work victims. There are 24 thousand workshop accidents per year, approximately. And 100 of these ends with death.

“My life has interwoven with Csepel, part of Budapest. I learned for engine fitter“- he says. Csepel was rated as a stronghold of the socialist industry. He learned here to deal with the metal in virtuoso way, and he started here his career as an artist.

“Without this craftsmanship, I would have become a bad painter”. He spent the summers in artist’s camps, he has become a sculptor, owing to his master, Tibor Csiky.

His exhibition titled “Dedicated to my Master” was timed to the 80th birthday of Csiky. “It is a summary of a personal history”, a visibly playful confession with serious thoughts, as he says.

Fitting in a seriously constructed geometry, mixing of fur-pieces, dowle, pencils, metal chips, other materials generate lyrical effects. Recalling not only the youth skylarking, these objects express the feeling of freedom, when you can afford yourself almost anything, having a mature personality.

In his atelier favorite or characteristic pieces of a given era are found, as samples, especially medals. Round ones, starting to speak as musical instruments, even if made of metal or wood. It is understood that music has an important role in his life.

“Palette of Csontváry” – an eye-catching piece, colored by different metals. “I wanted to prove myself that I am able to secede from the circles. In the last ten years I have worked with triangles. I think that after all these years I can perceive the geometry in a humoristic way, so I use a variety of materials. “

“ I made these glass objects blown in the Tokod glass plant. It is three men’s work. The surfaces were rived by a special procedure. For this reason, these are unique pieces.

There are no enough of medals. New and new exciting pieces are formed, to delight the coin collectors.

6/11/2012 Budapest

It was great to get to America starting from a farm. Apart from my expertise, I was interested in astronomy and space flights, and there is the Air and Space Museum. As for New York, it is full of galleries; last but not least there is the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). Also, New York is a utopian city, what inspired my paintings. We went back to America for ten years.

Born in Békéscsaba, a city in SE Hungary, I attended the Slovak High School. There was a painting study circle, but I have been at the circle of amateur radios, where we built transceivers. My Morse signals were received even in Argentina.

I was interesting in the technics, mainly mechanics. Besides being a ham, I had some success in airplane modeling of young. However, my great adventure was the painting.

When admitted to the College of Arts and Crafts, nobody wanted to believe that I had had a pass mark in math, but I had a good drawing in the entering test. For the first two years at the College we drew cubes only. That time there we were trained to the Life, they taught us all of professional and technical things, without constraints of genre.

I am attracted by mechanics even now. The design is in my brain, I calculate everything in my head. Sometimes I challenge myself: I dismantle a machine, then, after months, I try to put together. I am interested what I can make of something.

Long ago we travelled a lot, I move now in a smaller circles. I paint every day, without it I lost a day. My atelier becomes smaller and smaller, I hardly have enough place for my paintings and graphics. My inventory has 5000 objects.

20/9/2012 Budapest

“I am like a crab. I open my arms, then close, and I grab what I can. Discarded objects are gathered, cabinet doors, chairs, and rocking chairs. Step by step their turn comes, I prepare a new insert or tapestry, made of felt. “ .“I am like a crab. I open my arms, then close, and I grab what I can. Discarded objects are gathered, cabinet doors, chairs, and rocking chairs. Step by step their turn comes, I prepare a new insert or tapestry, made of felt. “

It is her present craft. “ In the sixties, I learnt English man’s tailoring. But that time who needed a hard-sewn jacket in style of the forties? Or who had the patience to wait several months for a hand-sewn body? The mass-production at the “Vörös Október” Garment Factory needed not these finesses.”

“I rarely use my cutting skills. I usually find golden nuggets at second-hand garment shops for nothing. Good fair quality coats or cardigans made of brand-new fine wool need only to retailor a little, I felt onto it some fine details, and a special ’bespoke tailoring’ is ready.

We see densely felted fabrics in fresh and dim colours, and curvy wires coated with wool. The ambience is quite theatrical, because of the high podiums around, serving as storerooms. It would not surprise if from behind a large trunk of baronial decoration the royal castellan himself steps forward. For we are in the Buda Castle.

Several decades ago she had a circumstance that she accepted the job of caretaker in the house of the National Archives in this street. She thinks it was the most fortunate gift of her life. This palace is the headquarters of the Lectorate of Fine Arts, and the workshops of textile restoration and bookbinding are here as well. She could really gather a lot of practice in-house.

„You can felting everywhere. Summer in the yard, below the staircase, which resembles the Rialto bridge of Venice. In winter, on the big dining table. „

I start the upholstering with domestic wool, which is not the best quality. At the coloured parts it worns quickly. Just for this reason I do not want to ask any money for it. Even now I give these away, although the Australian wool is of high quality.

I prepare it because it is a lot of fun.

We observe with exciting the hat-racks, just as in the museum. She devotedly collects textiles of any sorts.

“At a clear-outs, a woman invited me to her house, when she saw me, mooning around the discarded textiles. Would she give me away an old chrisom robe? – she asked. There were a bodice and bonnet of Brussels lace. The old panties’ collections will surely interesting for the granddaughters.”

We got into a magic world. Sometimes it is like a dollhouse, sometimes as a palace. The lady of the house is decorating and gadgeteering, she built the stove herself. She sticks to the cooper boiler in the bathroom, for it she produces the paper briquettes herself. She is proud of the gas stove in the kitchen, made before 1917, and even in that time it had a dish warmer.

The tiny sewing room reveals the time, when woman was a lady, and a man was a gentleman.

8/9/2012 Budapest

I did not care about Picasso at all. A fig for him! But, I got him as a thesis for state exam: I had to analyse the Guernica. From then on, I studied him a lot, especially the portraits of Dora Maar of tragic life. Picasso saw forms everywhere, transforming to plane everything what he saw in the space. And I develop back his paintings to the space, freely using Picasso’s ideas. .

Artists favour to reprocess the works of worthy predecessors. As Picasso painted the ‘Painter’ after El Greco, I create the sculpture version of the ‘Painter’ of Picasso. It aroused even the attention of a serious connoisseur of Picasso, he asked a version.”

He makes a lot of sketches on movements, muscles, bones. Sometimes years passed when a piece could be incorporated to a statue. He is working, looking for that something that somehow unfits into the whole. He says that a ‘cuckoo’s egg’ is needed. This is the point which attracts the viewer, fixing him to stand at the object.

Every good sculpture has an anomaly, to catch the eye. For example, the head. His heads are always different.

“The ‘infinite space’ keeps my mind occupied for long time. If you open a closed body, looking inside, you see a dark space without definite end. To develop this space is a gruelling, hard task for a sculptor.”

“At the start I worked with bronze and wood only. Then I painted my statues. I discovered the aluminium recently. It is a beautiful material. You can combine it well with wood and glass.

 The sculptor’s problem is the object itself, he needs to create an object what the viewer can receive. We need to entrust him, what he observe in the object. It is not the task of the sculptor to inflict himself on the viewer.”

“I make even assembled statues. Consisting of 4-5 pieces, you can put together in several ways. The interactive sculpture should be such that it remains a sculpture even if assembled by any way. Collectors are very fond of it. Some of them insist to put together the statue alone at home.”

A collector visited him when he realised that his new, modern house, purpose-built for his stately collection of antiquities, does not tolerate the curiosities. The cool minimalist environment sought these funny and puzzle-out-it sculptures.

Just now, he has no work in public. The “Great Reclining Woman”, a paraphrase of Michelangelo’ allegorical statue, “The Night”, is resting in his garden. It was a hard task to get a casting workshop for this statue of 40 pieces. In that time everybody wanted to cast a sculpture of St. Stephan.

At last, this sculpture was ready, and in 2004 it was presented by the Society of Sculptors at the Erzsébet square on the occasion of European accession. Its fate was caused by the plastic, painted cows of the European Union. Organisers wanted exactly to replace it by the cows, so it was removed. Now “she” is relaxing in the garden, surrounded by plaster moulds, and dense bush, wrapped by tall wild flowers.

28/8/2012 Biatorbágy

Read more:

www.attilamata.com

“I am always dissatisfied with myself. For this reason, earlier I pushed the paint from the tube directly on the canvas. The stronger the colour was, the better I felt. For this reason I received a strong criticism first. Since then, I use more subdued hues.” .

“My Ego is fighting with myself. My pictures go on this fighting. For example, little soldiers are fighting around my head, like one of my Ego with the other one. Many times I ask myself: hey, little bee, what is your future?”

A great temptation for her environment is to find her vulnerable points. “When all of his comments peeled down from me, my darling laughed triumphantly: You can not whistle! Whistle in two acts, or I do not know what even a bird can… So, in response, I painted this two pictures.”

“A lot of my pictures are about my weight” – she laughs the ascetic problem engaging the young women.

She is shaping the confidently posing young woman (perhaps even herself) with several brilliant tones, resulting what all real woman of today wants to radiate from herself: sturdiness, style, intelligence, passion, mystery.

“Amsterdam is for its bridges. I visited the town, I stored many moments of the bridges, and I painted them later. I won the scholarship of the Amadeus Foundation with this series.

“We are two in this room, I came later. It is great for me. At least, I need not clear the desktop, spread the foil, and get out the paints when arriving from my civil work time. Now I come here only, and what is more, I can create large pictures, having enough room.

Here it is not a big disaster if the electricity goes out; using the lights of my laptop and some candles I can paint as long as I want.

21/8/2012 Budapest

A móri Képző- és Iparművészeti Szabadiskola Alapítványát 22 éve magánemberek, művészek, mesteremberek alapították, a helyet a Móri Önkormányzat adja. 1994 óta nyaranta művésztelepet és nyári táborokat szerveznek hivatásos képző- és iparművészek részvételével illetve gyerekek számára.
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Mór központjában, a későbarokk stílusú Lamberg Kastély volt gazdasági épületeit a helyi művészközösség önkéntes munkával alakította át a művésztelep igényeinek megfelelően. A hely infrastruktúrájának fejlesztését és fenntartását az Alapítvány saját erőből fedezi.

A helyre hozott kútházban működik a fazekas műhely, a volt szamár- és lóistálló a felújítás után jelenleg műhelyeknek és egy kiállító teremnek ad helyet.

A műhelyekben szakemberek és mesterek vezetésével a magas művészetekben és népi mesterségekben meglévő technikai ismeretek átörökítése és tanítása folyik.

Egész évben nyitva áll a kortárs hazai és nemzetközi művészeti élet szereplői számára. A művésztelepen készült alkotások képezik az Alapítvány állandó kiállításának alapját.

Az egyes műhelyek önfenntartóak, év közben művészi kivitelezési munkákban működnek közre.

Több műfajban tevékenykednek: Hagyományos népi fazekasság, cserépkályha készítés, rakuzás,

szobrászat, viaszveszelytéses és precíziós bronzöntés, kézműves kovácsolás,fafaragás, nemeztextil falikárpit,

tűzzománc, grafika és szitanyomás, fotózás és camera obscura, művészkönyvek.

Állandó jelleggel sem állami, sem önkormányzati pénzügyi támogatásban nem részesül.

Állandó fizetett munkatársa nincs. Az Alapítvány tagjai önkéntes és ingyenes munkájukkal több millió forinttal gyarapítják Mór város vagyonát.

A közösség tagjai becsülik egymást, és a vezetésükre bízott műhelyeket. Nyitott szellemben és kultúrált körülmények között fogadják a vendégként érkező művészeket és megrendelőket.

2/8/2012 Mór

A bejegyzés a www.moriszabadiskola.hu honlap anyaga alapján készült saját fotóanyagunkkal illusztrálva.

The visit was cancelled! “ Lacking support and money, the Szerencs School terminates its operation of 35 years. The exhibition at the Fuge Gallery is open to visitors, worth to see it. Regards, János Fajó”. The two-week camp of the 36th International School and Colony of Arts was advertised for 15-29 of July.

Registered before as visitors, we received the abovementioned depressing and even shocking answer. In the circular of the 2012 Camp you could read: “The Art Camp was established by István Szathmáry in 1976. Leading artists were Pál Deim, Tibor Csiky, Ádám Misch, and János Fajó. Transformed in 1990 to Association to preserve its professional level and independence, it moved to Szerencs, a town in East Hungary in 1994. Being organised for two weeks in second week of July of every year, 80-140 young people from 4-5 countries participates.

The spirit of the colony and the school is penetrated by the geometric, factual art. “We teach the pure form in all of materials, techniques, theory and function. Here we deal in self-extracting only, 24 hours a day. In this school we are modeling the way of life what necessary for this job. This is the living of life, that is, reaching of the individual to himself, which is different to any conventional and common. Purposeful and custom-made” (János Fajó).

As the circular says, the Camp consists of 8 sections. Art director is János Fajó, artist decorated by the Kossuth Prize, teaching the fundamentals of composition as well.

Studies of natural objects: Balázs Pataki, industrial design and graphic artist

Etching and engraving, linocutting, silkscreen printing: Tamás László Kovács, graphic artist and sculptor.

Photographic technique and camera use: András Matkócsik, director and screenwriter, laboratory practice: Júlia Stradovár, and Eszter Galambos

Ceramic design (objects and tableware): Zsuzsanna Réthy

Sculpture: András Kludovácz

Fundamentals of architecture, modeling of space connections: Jenő Kapy (DLA, Ybl Award)

Animation, digital design practices, and visual experiments: Bálint Botzheim, architect

The Creative Camp Association was established to replace what the downgraded drawing studies at the high schools is not able to product: detecting the talented ones and preparing them for access to higher education. Searching the talented young people, the Association strives to look for the gold nuggets in the sand, because it knows: the frontline of any nation consists of the talent and aptitude. Any humane advancement and wealth begins here.

Participants at the Creative Camp could become artist by cooperative activity. The method is based on voluntariness. Ten years ago the Creative Camp was complemented with an Art Camp, where formerly home-grown, made artists work as well.

Perhaps an era had terminated. But what about its doctrine? Slight consolation, that this institution excelling in the domestic art education will be presented in a professionally competent study.

The utmost what we can do at this website is to present as much young artists “growing up” in this Camp, to pass their modern mindsets, rescuing what rescueable. When we visited the exhibition, we had no idea on the developments. We prepared to the ‘great’ visit, as usual. Our photos made in haste might reflect some values what the Szerencs Free School of Art produced along the last 35 years.

Those finding these lines at this site, and reading the opening words of János Fajó at the Fuga exhibition (www.fuga.org.hu) could understand what is the sense of thinking, and what is the role of the art not for art’s sake.

“The smallest particle of the society is the individual, but the quality of the society depends on this individual. The future of a nation depends on the individuals developed to be personalities. And, of course, on the social policy, what is able to recognize this effect, and assists to evolve the talents knowingly and using due projects. Not doing against this evolving, but helping it! A country is poor and restless, if unbalanced, if it has no values. If does not know, what is important, what is more important and what is unnecessary luxury. These made the citizens irrigated. Poverty can be only accepted by justice and having social perspectives. Inverted values of the power takes the country into sure destruction and degradation…”(excerpt)

15/7/2012 Budapest

www.szabadiskola.hu

“The bronze statue of nearly five-and-half meter was cast in 60 pieces. Each piece weighted 100-120 kg. Even to move the pieces required many people and good organization. In 2011, this statue was raised for Mr. Sándor Wekerle, eminent statesman of Hungary in Mór, his birthplace. The sculptor was Mr. Benedek Nagy, my father.”

A dozen students helped when needed. Welders made excellent works as well. Welded seams were grinded, then the statue received a patina layer, so its surface turned more beautiful.

Lost-wax casting (cire perdue method) is applied. As example, the birth of a public-area statue is presented using the sculpture of J. Zichy, a famous statesman. A mold is made of the original model, using polyurethane rubber; an outer mold is made from plaster. Once the mold is finished, molten wax is poured into it until an even coating covers the inner surface of the mold. Beeswax was used before, a Niral material now.

Metal is melted in a crucible in the furnace in his yard, and then poured carefully into the shell. It is no secret, either, that every public statue has a huge steel rod in the middle, that the metal thieves could not steal the statue.

He has casted, using bronze, a lot of things: man or horse, small or large. But it does not matter what the sculpture represent. For a caster, the important thing is to pursue exactly the vision of the artist. This does not just mean a perfect shape, but the choice of material, color and patina. Without partnership, technical expertise and humility the trade is not conceivable.

„Is there any temptation to add a little something to the model when working on an important piece?” „We correct a model only if the bronze thickness needs. There is a story of a help-mate caster, who, jokingly, aligned the tail of the horse from right to left at an equstrian statue, made by Pátzay, the famous professor of the Academy. The Master did not appreciate the joke.”

To know the material is a key issue. You must exactly know the behaviour of the alloys. Melting the copper, it is important how much tin or other metal are added. “ A designer asked me to produce some lamp arms of aluminum. Casting of aluminum is rather an industrial procedure. Expensive, and remunerative for large series only. I will stay at bronze and at the statues. “

His father, sister, and brother-in-law: all sculptors. Among these excellent artists he has no artistic ambitions. He, however, observes the slowly evolving waves of the wax, poured to the water: as the lava flowing out of a volcano.

Just for curiosity, he needed to cast the waves using iron and bronze. An interesting form came out from a bunch of dry flowers, and the miniature window frames framed together look well.

13/7/2012 Mór

Taking a white cloth from under his black bowler hat, he wipes his brow, then he nicely put the cloth and the negative between a wooden plate and a glass, then place exposing to the sun. And now, timing is measured by music, please! When the tiny music box winds down, a picture comes out, in most admiration of the audience. Nobody knows before, that the cloth was wetted with developing solution, and the whole Commedia dell’ Arte is a humbuggery..

People always admire the craft of the strolling photographer. Where the small van appears, and when the ‘Camera Obscura Tent’ is pitched up, the great game starts! Those getting into the tent could see on a sheet the outer word streaming in across a tiny hole, but upside down. Under the canopy of the Camera Obscura drawing table, you can observe the perspective plane view of the outworld using mirrors and lenses. Meanwhile, the photographer makes a photo presentation as well using a special pinhole camera and some old processing method.

You can produce a camera obscure of many objects. Of a box, of a book… You only need darkness and a hole.

I wanted to make not only portraits but group photos as well, so I needed a larger object. Then I found this lard pot at home. People are surprised, when I put it on the tripod.

In the photography the show is very important. The high point is the picture itself. “Generally, a big crowd is surrounding me, pleasure-seeking, meanwhile they learn the old technique of photography. Our motto: be together in a lard pot!”

Darkness, sunlight, some green chemicals, a little rummaging, hocus-pocus, incantation, some music and patient sloshing… this is a real funny game. And this can be performed by one click using the digital technique of these days.

He has been invited to festivals and meetings not only at this country but also at numerous European countries. And he is happy to go. People love the interactivity, and the lucky ones receiving a blue-colour cyanotype, are looking for these even in years later. They do not mind to sit motionless a full minute facing the laird pot.

They like to shake or to roll the container filled with developing fluid even for five minutes, and peacefully wait until the sun copies the picture.

He graduated as graphic artist then studied photography. He is “looking his place under the sun” in Mór, in a small Hungarian town just now. Since 2000, he manages the graphic-screenprinting-photography workshop of the Fine and Applied Arts Open School Foundation. Their host is the artists’ colony, a self-supporting organization. Here the workshops commit themselves to admit applicants, and to participate in the activities of the colony.

Those coming here can try everything, and can expect cordial help. And, if the photographer imagines a cat, dragging out a wine bottle stopper with her tail, he can ask the masters at the foundery to cast it of bronze.

5/7/2012 Mór

Read more:

www.moriszabadiskola.hu

The fire is always witchcraft. My children often told me like that. Two weeks before the Red Mud Disaster, we were working at the artists’ colony. In the evening, we fired in the darkness. I made a large red picture. Returning to my studio, I noticed that a piece of a small house was lost from the picture. All at once, a colleague came bringing this piece. ‘I found it in the grass outside. Does this gadget belong to you?’ At home my kids asked, what was this picture about?.

I said – I don’t know, surely some dreadful thing, perhaps this is blood, a house overturned, and a mourning band… Later I turned pale when the disaster was announced (Red Mud Disaster, 2011: a huge slurry pond of the Ajka Alumina Works collapsed, and the red mud flushed some villages causing deaths of ten and enormous demolition)

The Morelli name is very common in northern Italy. My great-grandfather served in Garibaldi’s army, later he went to Poland, then settled down in Tokaj with his Polish wife. One son became a woodcutter. After his studies, he went to see the world up to London. We have his correspondence. From London, he brought to Hungary the color printing technique of the wood engraving. For a while, Gusztáv Morelli was the director of the Museum of Applied Arts. One of his grandsons was my father.”

She collected the technical literature from the Széchenyi National Library. She started with making small-scale enamels to learn the materials. Having been trained in arts and craft procedures, she preferred the painted enamel. As a co-founder of the Kecskemét artists’ colony of enamels (together with Kátay, István Petrilla, Edit Stefániai, and Fabók) she participated in the summer works. They went back to the roots, using ancient Hungarian motifs and invoking the Renaissance times.

On the occasion of the Millecentenarium she displayed a large composition, portraying the tempestuous periods of the Hungarian history.

Painted enamels were cultivated in Limoges, for a long time it was unknown here. For the seventies, thanks to the Artists’ Colony, Kecskemét arrived into the row of world’s top five enamel workshops (the others: Limoges, Mores, Erfurt, Barcelona). World-class recognition was luring artists from around the world. Enamels became trendy even in this country as well.

The fired enamel is really a noble material. It became very popular because of its thousand-year value. Unfortunately, if the knowledge of the material and the procedure is not perfect, it does not become a true work of art, but simply a philanderness. “The strong richness of the enamel means a trap to the artist, because he/she must have such an inner strength and creative invention, that his/her gestures of creation may cope the richness of the material”

For the new object of the four basic elements we need to carefully select its carrier material. She likes the processed, used wood. She carves it, but eventually an old and battered duster stand from a yard could serve in a 1956 monument.

You must learn the techniques of the fire enameling. There are the big group of the goldsmiths’ enamel and the painted enamel. Their applications differ. The fired enamel unites with the carrier (base) material, but it joins with metals of similar melting points only (gold, silver, copper). Pricing for goldsmiths’ enamel is the same as for gold.

The iron-based enameling was possible since the turn of the century, only with industrial help. The technology is quite different, for the iron can not join to the enamel. Enamel firing of large objects is in big tunnel kilns. Because of industry downgrading, in Hungary only one tunnel kiln is operating in Bonyhád. “ I like working in this plant. Over your head the conveyor chain carries the tinkling pans and basins, bluster and stink around, everybody is shouting for the noise … There is something what I can make there.”

She just arrived from Naszvad, where 35 large-size fired-enamel pictures of her were exhibited, and where she was awarded with the Master title and the grand prize. “Now, you need to help all of us” – they said. But, she made the same all his life!

28/6/2012 Budapest

Awards:

Ferenczy Noémi Prize

Szent Adalberti Prize

The subway started with an abrupt thrust. The man’s head, supported by his palm, jolted hardly. For a moment, his eyes opened, and then he returned to his original posture. “For years, I make sketches on the subways, buses, trams. In that time I learned how I can see somebody not observing that I am watching him/her”.

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“For a long time past I collect the ‘stolen’ moments. In recent weeks I started a series. Its working title used is ‘The bored ones’ till now. The pictures present the idle or reading-wrapped figures on the Budapest public transport. It is characteristic that none of the people is making eye-contact. Involuntarily they fit into the typic architecture of the vehicle. In the pictures I emphasise the geometry the static ambience of a subway or tram, while the figures are depicted in just one but characteristic brush-stroke

So far, figurality accompanied me during my work, and it is likely that this will remain for a while. I began to study drawing early, this determines my relation to painting. During my academic years I could copy baroque pictures as painting studies.

It was a touching moment when an elderly model, acquainted from the university, offered me sitting by courtesy, just to support my studies.

Last year several times I painted cardboard boxes, garbage bags, and trash containers. Many people asked why Ideal with these? In fact, their beauty captivated me: the colours of the plastic bags, the geometry of the boxes, their irregularities formed along the use.

Even before I treated the street junks. Six years ago, I brought home my first front door, salvaged as street junk, to transform to painting. These became the frames of my works, mentally and physically. My thesis work started from two doors, even the dirt on the glass was built in into my pictures.

For two years I teach at the High School of Fine and Applied arts, being the form master of a first-grade class. In my planned series I want to treat the traditions, the customs, and the tools of teaching drawing. In the first pictures of this series I painted the plaster castings of antique sculptures. Another theme was the everyday situation of the teaching. Students are sitting on bucks in semi-circle around the view, and draw absorbed in their works.

I could get into the Amadeus Creative House as a winner of the Art Collectors Award, founded in 2009. I started in a smaller studio, but from year to year I could move to a larger premise. Now I am able to paint even a 2×2.5 m picture. It becames clear in a larger space only, that a painting not so monumental, as it appeared at close range in a narrow space.

22/6/2012 Budapest

Read more:

honlap: www.szabofranciska.hu

The crowd swarmed along the streets of Toledo, below the summer sunshine. The sudden idea came when returning from the El Greco museum: let us make a picnic over the city, from where Greco painted the famous townscape. We climbed up to the rocks along the steep side, bringing some bottles of wine. Fresh of white wine, old of red wine. We jumped off several hundred of years.

Nobody remembered, when was the decision (that time or later) to paint a picture together, with a joint effort, as the great foregoers did. The opportunity came just now, when the local district government was lending a large empty retail unit for one month, to promote the painting in the society. As above the studio of Tiziano before, you can read: Sensaria (‘fresh air’), calling in the passers-by. A note on the door: Open Studio, open daily from 10 to 18.

Members of the Sensaria Association are working and exhibiting here. They established the association in 2003 at the University of Finearts, classmates of Zsigmond Károlyi’s class. Other young artists, having interests in the traditional art, joined later. The art historians are talking on new figurality nowadays. Pictures of landscapes, still-lifes, portraits.

“The picture on the wall is shivering alone, waiting for someone coming and addressing it. Some crazy people made a group, dealing with showing the world as it was created: grass grows, sun shines, man and woman are living… We want to paint pictures, what are understandable without university studies as well. The challenge of the picture is to grab me, while the job of the painter is to get the most out of the theme. A picture is good if honest.” They are talking on what they think freely.

Lehel Kovács paints the wounds of landscape, what nobody would paint. Tamás Lőrincz creates self-portraits, mirror images, and an F-1 car, as a symbol of the energy inside. Ábel Szabó portrays the objects, dealing by no arts, even if these items are effecting the lives of many. Krisztián Horváth raises the perishableness and rebirth into philosophical high. Dániel László paints his daughter walking in the garden, or his son in the “Terror’s House” Museum, when he created a series on the ‘socialist’poverty, titled “Mátyás Rákosi and his time”.

They delineate our country, abandoned industrial zones, warren-like building estates, and the lands lying fallow. They observe the little island around a dilapidated farmhouse inside the plow-land. Fields are re-divided now! Who knows, residents departed hastily perhaps, maybe expelled, gas and electricity lines are living, crop is inside.

For them, sacrality is not a gag of the avant-garde; they have not a cynical approach to the religion. The intimate air of a church, the towering figure of the columns, the small statue of the little Jesus and Mary, made by Zsófia Balogh – these are the answers how our new generation feels about the faith.

The modern art has some self-mutilation nature. Until the modernism, people managed themselves and their environment in more proportion. Some people think that they become trendy and advanced, if denying. An artist can be minimalist even if looking for simple themes, working out in more expressive mode.

Visitors were variegated. A girl came in a real punk attire, rings in her ears, wearing black T-shirt, field dungarees, boots. Despite her aggressive lookout, she was very nice and inquiring, of delicate and sensitive soul. A woman often visited them. She was standing before a picture for a long time. “I was greatly wondering what she was thinking.”

The last day of opening, there was the two pictures of the joint effort presented. The “Budakalász landscape” was a self-developed composition. Somebody arrived and painted what he/she thought. Lehel painted the sky, Krisztián the mountains, Dani the meadows and the figures, and Tamás the big wine bottle. Ábel decided that he must not put more to the theme. For the other picture “Toledo” we have some discussion and photos. Everybody used his/her own palette, so the colors are mixed differently at the limits. “We could surprise even each others.”

What happened at this retail unit in the Bartók street? Based on a good intention, there were an avalanche of experience, a coming-out, joint hopes. We have learned that the thorough self-knowledge and the acceptance of how others see us can build a strong confidence in us. In this way we need not to give up our individuality, everybody can find his/her position, and at the end, the great work comes into being.

7/6/2012 Budapest

Tagok / Members:

Balogh Zsófia
Horváth Krisztián
Horváth Roland
Kovács Lehel
László Dániel
Lőrincz Tamás
Szabó Ábel