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Painting by István Bodóczky |
Born in St Petersburg, El Kazovszkij lived in Hungary from 1965 and attended the Fine Arts Academy in Budapest from 1970 to 1977. Her often provocative paintings drew on a curious mythology and self-reflective style that put her among Hungary's most celebrated modern contemporary painters.
Imre Bak has created a visual definition of polarity using contrasting two-dimensional shapes. László Fehér's portrait of El Kazovszkij shows the painter, in her teddy bear hat, with a disconcerting smile. László Szotyory presents an elegiac image of two animal figures behind a line of poplar trees - perhaps a reference to El Kazovszkij's "soul dog" which she included in many of her paintings. Károly Kelemen's vivid colours are a reflection on the painful absence left behind when life ends. László feLugossy has contributed two refined and simple metaphysical paintings. Tamás Hencze has painted a cross with heavy glaze and István Nádler presents eternity in black and blue, crossed with a narrow red line appearing like a trail of blood that suddenly turns and stops. Instead of making direct references to El Kazovszkij's art, these works use the power of abstraction, which also characterised her art. They speak about what is beyond death and reflect eternity and timelessness.
Áron Gábor's work shows the process of matter falling apart into bits, transforming into chaos, then becoming something spiritual. Sándor Rácmolnár brings an image of a celestial vehicle, with comets spinning as cogwheels, to the show. One of the most powerful representations of absence is a painting by Róbert Várady of the faded contours of a staircase.
