Interview

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“As a child, I loved drawing. But I didn't know that there are adults who also like to draw and paint. I was fine in my own world until I was 17 years old. By this time, my love for drawing was already striking. I attended a theoretical high school in mathematics and foreign languages. My mother had a girlfriend who recommend the school to me where you could learn to draw. This is how I enrolled in the Art Folk School of Miercurea Ciuc, which I attended simultaneously. I loved drawing and painting, and every week I brought home-made artworks to school. After two years, I left the theoretical high school and transferred to the High School of Art. So, I graduated from two schools. From there, I went on to Bucharest University of the Arts. I graduated after 5 years as a painting major. After these 5 years of creative process (work and exhibitions), I came home to my hometown, when the art scene was vibrant here. We got together and started projects together. In 2004, we founded with Jánosi Antal and Berszán Zsolt the "Nyitott Műhely, Atelier Deschis, Open Studio" association and artist group. We published our joint projects in our magazine of the same name. If I remember correctly, I was an active member until 2007. Antal and Zsolt continued and developed the magazine and founded a contemporary art museum "KOKEM" în Miercurea Ciuc. Today, all three of us go our separate ways.”

What inspires you?

“I am inspired by contemporary art, I never had to think about what to draw or paint. The urge mostly comes from within. I feel it as an inner tension. Accumulated knowledge and books on self-knowledge still contribute to the creative process. One work brings another with it. Books are important in my life, I have been shaped by them. Lately, I've been paying attention to flowers. I love the presence of flowers both in contemporary art and in nature. I am interested in an image in which color and shape has natural power like flowers.”

What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?

“My themes are imaginary portraits, heads and simply standing figures. I like to use anatomical references. I like to liberate form, through imagination. Liberating form from physical constraints, bringing about a deeper aspect of reality. I practice a kind of natural imagination in an expressive figurative way. I'm looking to get to know myself better, I want to immerse myself in creating my own ideal of beauty. I believe that beyond personality, what we experience as the inner world is actually the universe itself. I want to paint love as cosmic energy, if possible. My paintings are the first steps of such a world of forms. I believe that our personality and the inner world behind our personality is the universe itself, and we perceive those forces on ourselves. It is typical of my works, drawings and paintings that there is no composition in them, so to speak. At the same time, they carry the possibility of endless visual solutions. An imaginary design in a natural approach. I try to approach the creative process as an attunement to my own nature.”

How would you describe your work?

“I love these questions of yours because I can create visually, and differently mentally. I like to think that my works don't just reflect on my existence, that they don't just reflect my well-being, but they affect that. So, I think it's important to strive for a quality that can positively influence my life. And all those who look at it or immerse themselves in it. It is also a creative process for me, to rethink, to recreate, to look for the most suitable thought form for me. When I create, the question is important to me: what I have to control and what I have to let happen almost. spontaneously I'm the most self-absorbed in drawing if, while I'm working, I don't think about what I’m doing. However, somehow I still supervise the drawing. It is so much a part of me. It can shape my life. I think of it with affection. I want it to be something that can relate to me with love, or to anyone watching. it. I believe that a work of art can shape my inner world that does not just reflect myself , but it is also an active part of my present.”

Which artists influence you most?

“ As an artist, I was most inspired by Antal Jánosi, when I was young. And there was Georg Baselitz next to him, but I'm influenced by the contemporary art scene, both international and Romanian. I also learned a lot from others or noticed things I couldn't have learned on my own. I saw wonderful formulations in the Hungarian contemporary art too. I love the openness of art, the way it connects us. It is wonderful to enter into this process.”

“I like to think that my works don't just reflect on my existence, that they don't just reflect my well-being, but they affect that.”

What is your creative process like?

“When I create, I am completely immersed in the work, in the work flow. I'm there with my full attention. When I draw, I do it without thinking, I don't know in advance how the drawing will turn out, and that's when I feel like it's going well. That's when it becomes more natural. When I like a visual solution, I would like to repeat it, to direct the work process. What I start is all preserved or transformed. Paintings are different. I am looking for an inner ideal of beauty. My essence, the energy that is realized deep within my being, love. A form that can identify with it. For me, figurative representation is a sure point. How imagery will evolve, I don't know in advance. Reflection on my work is preceded by the work itself. Reflection permeates my being. It is ingrained in me and I become one with it. So, comes another work. What am I? My drawing asks. Where I listen, I realize. Where my attention is, there I am. I go to the whole subatomic level, where there is more emptiness than form itself.”

What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?

“I imagine that the artist is an integral part of society and that what concerns him is in union with it. It is a constantly moving connection like breathing. I imagine that the artist can be an opportunity for society to self-reflect. The artist, because he is concerned with himself/herself for the viewer, his work creates for the viewer a connection with himself/herself. The artist, as an important part of society, like every person, is a manifestation of life through whom the universe can be seen and felt. I imagine that every artist is immersed in his/her world and with the gesture of his/her work, he/she becomes united with the viewer. I imagine that this has a positive effect on all of us. I see creativity as an important role in a lot of areas of life. I ask myself, how I invent myself with knowledge in space, time, with objects and matter and how I related to people. I see creativity as a direction towards a positive future. I think the artist makes the universe visible.”