IKONS

I was a child when I first saw a 3D picture in my life. If you put the picture to the tip of your nose, focused on the center, slightly squinted and removed it away from your eyes slowly, a figure, floating in space, unfolded. It had a great impact on me. I kept searching for the figure again and again. The hidden image, revealed to the eyes, and – most importantly – to the mind, as an extra dimension, and as an issue of visual perception, has often come up in my works.

The series of icons is based on universal ideas. It’s intended to depict the cyclical nature and the milestones of life, such as birth (arrival), life (presence), death (departure), origins, etc. Images, like icons, illustrate abstract truths. The internal relationship between the icon and the holy person depicted provides the religious viewer with the way to God. The pieces of my series do not exclusively or always include sacred fields, but might – indirectly – offer a link between the non-empirical world and the man grappling with existential anxiety.

The concept demanded a rigid form, which expresses both aspects of duality: heavy and light, transparent and impenetrable. In my view, the curved figure, stripped, laid in a rectangular form, reflects the highly controlled proportion of the icon.

Also, the concept required a bleak background, lacking any perspectives. I often felt tempted to stick the main form to the bottom edge of the picture, or to hang it down from the top, lean it to the edge, collide it with another element of different rhythm, or simply make it fade into the background. By painting layers, I created a cold-warm, dark-light, complementary contrast, and sometimes I even applied cemented surface structure.

The repetitive motif, that of a curve, encompasses the notions of gate, door, window, arch, swaddling clothes, tombstone, stone table. The motif is deliberately made large. It suppresses the background and stands out from it, as if only exceptional abilities could make the scene unraveled. On most of the paintings, the pattern is symmetrical, smoothly filled with a set of motifs inspired by Hungarian symbols. I did not want to show the patterns explicitly, nevertheless it was part of the process to ’tattoo’ them on the panel.

The curved pattern – the essential part of the work – is partially covered. This way, I designed an obscured, but slightly visible direction of motion for it. I found this solution more powerful than creating an outstretched, too specific drawing. I wanted to create the surface, which makes the viewer believe that if (s)he could see behind the bush strokes, ‘the truth’ would reveal – as it does when looking at 3D pictures.

But what is actually ‘the truth’? For the viewer perhaps it’s the certainty of visual perception. For me, it’s the reality of the phenomenon – the way the fascinated imagination manifests itself as firmly as if it was the perception itself.