Re:touch 2.0 - Pápai Zsanett's exhibition at Art9 Gallery

Zsanett Pápai is known as a musician in Hungary – composer and singer of Imitation and singer of different jazz formations – but she’s always been devoted to her total art approach to expression, and she is also an accomplished painter.

She has been painting since her teenage years. She studied philosophy at ELTE (Budapest) and at Sorbonne Paris and she had an exhibition in Village Suisse (Paris) during her time at the University.

After returning to Hungary she has been focusing mostly on her musical carreer, meanwhile she started to paint again 4 years ago.

This is the first time she shows her works at a gallery in Budapest.

This exhibition is a reflection and a revisitation of her former self. Old and new paintings in juxtaposition create a conversation between the various creative voices and show the evolution and different stages of an artist.

The cornerstone in the works of Zsanett Pápai is the antagonsitic relation of two adversative creative aims.

On the one part there is an apparent pursuit for a pure and clear formal tone and a strong will to reduction of phraseology, on the other hand the mark making is overwhelmed by subjectivity and rampageous expressivity.

The contrast of the raw and pastel tones escalates this conflict even further.

More and more layers of this relation are revealed by the alloyage and clash of different techniques.

The chiseled details and transient colors appearing from the thick lines of the paint roller deliver passion and vigor to the composition. The ardent movement of the trowel declares carnality and vitality. The constant projection of the reflexive and emotional levels creates a unique and fascinating expression method.

The canvas is the ring where the sense of existential claustrophobia of being and the uncompromising life affirmation of the artist wrestle bending and tangling each other throughout the layers of paint and meaning.

Re:touch

In what way and to what extent are we continuous to our former self?

Is there a definite core, a foundation which remains the same throughout our personal history or is it like the ship of Theseus which is being replaced piece by piece along its journey?

What is this nostalgic longing to the previous versions of our self notion? Is it just a narcissistic obsession that keeps us from evolving?

The exhibition is a performative act to deconstruct and redefine identity. It’s an artistic representation of the subject’s revolt against it’s own definitions, narrative discourse and mythology.