Pató Károly

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Before leaving, I went to the Zoo to see what needs attention. We travelled by bus from Los Angeles to Mexico City, then hitchhiking around nearly two months there. In my sailor-bag there were my clothes, plus a sleeping bag and the hammock. To sleep on the ground is a danger. On the beach, we rocked between two poles in the night, below us run the crabs, even some scorpions. Being on the way: it is one of the best things in the world. Danger can be everywhere.

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I met with scorpions even in Turkey. Under a stone abruptly overthrown, I saw the translucent green body and the rising sting behind. In a second I was on the top of a cliff. In Peru my camera was robbed with its bag, I did not resist for the keeper of a restaurant had a revolver in his open drawer. That time this was the biggest value with me, could not possess for long.

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Preparing myself to travel to China, I learnt 700 ideograms in a year. I would surely not able to manage the literary vocabulary of the people’s China, praising the heroic partisan girls and Mao Tse-tung. I did not get to China, but I made agraphic series titled „Tour to West“, based on a Chinese novel. I like the classic Chinese literature.

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You cannot reach every place. Reading multiplies the human life, as if it would be a hundred. Read the Fernando Pessoa poem: “Ship, boarding to far away route…” Just the infinity. I like the short stories, especially of Kafka. Originally, my horse was printed in one-color: “Desire to become Indians”. I could not later resist the induction, and I colored it.

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Kafka writes about the loneliness, as well as our anguish. My linocut titled “The bird of Kafka” is on this theme.

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We hardly have room at home. My stuff is everywhere. There is a pole at the doorpost, for I have had yoga for 40 years. I grew up here. The house was damaged during the war, pieces of the colored window frames and ceramic ornaments remained. In the sixties the plasterworks were cleared, for a while the house was bare, then painted uniformly. Twenty years ago my TV set was discarded, the taste of our son Ákos is not destroyed by computer games. If he has intention, he paints such this one.

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This year, I travelled to Norway with my son. This journey for two was the first prize of the photo contest “Europe is Beautiful”. I was in Erdély/Transsylvania together with a friend of folk music. The atmosphere was very good, our hosts began to dance – I thought I could enter that picture to the contest.

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I produce mostly linocuts, but I do etchings, woodcuts and drawings. For linocuts, I sometimes upscale my palm-sized drawings. Playing with forms, bizarre things are produced.

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The artist is experimenting. The things learned – like the words of a language. The more of them, the bigger the possibility to vary.

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For linocuts, I am using floor-covering linoleums. I have a lot of tools, but I mostly use several favorites. Walking on the street, and seeing the small fish-shaped agate pendants hanging in the necks of the women, I feel a desire to tear off its tail fins (not limited to this desire, of course), because the tool made of agate is the best to etching and grinding for mezzotints, while it is used for gilding by restorers as well.

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Just like at reading, when I draw, things are appearing before me, I feel their smell and air. I am fond of graphics, if I could, I prefer to do so day and night. Or, I deal with the nature. Cutting up a cabbage, I turn it to draw. I make photos on the dried soil, then I prune my trees. Or, hanging out in the woods, I pick mushrooms; sleep outside in a tent, even in wintertime.

7/10/2011 Budapest

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