Imre Tolnay: The Suspenders
Imre Tolnay's art is at once abstract and figurative, transcendental and realistic, gestural and geometric. He is characterised by his use of organic forms and his richness of symbolism and the presentation of structures that are expressed in their fragmentedness. In his works, seemingly contradictory components merge into a harmonious whole, revealing the complexity and contradictions of the world.
His most important themes are space, inseparable from the ever-changing infinity of time, yet measurable in human terms, and the perception of primordial energies as contained in tangible matrices and intangible components. His work seeks visual answers to existential questions, revealing both the forces of nature's elements and transcendent values. The compositions of his works are created by extracting a fragment from a fragment, which is completed by the imagination constructed by the viewer.
Schedule
The textures of his works are varied; he applies plaster, earth, metal, plush materials and natural materials such as wood, coal, sand, wool to his canvases, in order to transform them into a spatial, relief-like, yet flat image, by using materials that already suggest the various possibilities of the representation of space. He creates his many surfaces with dynamic gestures, sometimes staining and bleaching his black canvases with alkaline substances, thus giving them the effect of consciously used chemical processes, while also allowing chance and instinct to play a role. His use of colour is characterised by a contrast of light and dark tones, especially earthy and pastel colours.
Imre Tolnay, who also works in printmaking, watercolour, photography and installation, graduated in graphic design from the Budapest University of Fine Arts in 1992 and completed his master's degree in 1995. In 2003 he received his doctorate from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs, and in 2013 he habilitated at the same university. Tolnay's current exhibition at the Műcsarnok focuses mainly on his painting work, which is complemented by a video installation evoking the visual world of the works on canvas.
Walking through the three rooms of the exhibition, which are thematically interconnected, is like attending a rite of passage. It is as if we are entering the world of the 1979 film Stalker by the world-famous 20th century Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), where we are adopting the rules of the cinematic Zone, the title of one of Tolnay's works now on show, to reach the innermost space, the depths of our souls, through paths where we are confronted with our own struggles and questions of existence. Tolnay guides us through the exhibition like a Stalker, to descend to the depths of the earth and the waters, where we are purified and reach the ethereal heights and the light that he conveys through his works. There are several ways of approaching this: by imbibing sacredness, or by obeying the call of nature, or by following the harmony of the baroque music in the video, which is another art form closely related to the visual arts.
curator: Réka Fazakas
Kunsthalle Budapest
The largest exhibition hall in Budapest, in Heroes Square, just the opposite the Museum of Fine Arts.