Ádám Dallos @ BumBum

Last Thursday we popped along to BumBum for the opening of 24 year old Hungarian University of Fine Arts graduate Ádám Dallos' first ever solo exhibition. The young artist explores the themes of gentleness and strength through a mixture of homo-erotic imagery and paintings of wild animals set against an unrealistic baby-pink background.

There is a real sincerity in Ádám's work which is endearing. Some of the male couples depicted in his paintings connect tenderly with each other and with the viewer, often meeting and holding our gaze as they stare out from the canvas. 

While 'gay' subject matter may not raise too many eyebrows in the West, it is still considered a bit of a taboo in Central-Eastern Europe. Therefore, we at One A Day applaud Ádám for being so forthright about the subject of same-sex relationships and we hope to see more 'queer art' making its way to the mainstream in Hungary.

For more on Ádám Dallos head over to his official website

He Made This Ltd.

 

Alistair Hall, Director of We Made This Ltd shares with us his journey from graduate to running his own studio, blogging and how failure can ultimately lead to success..

Tell us your elevator pitch:
We Made This is a London based graphic design studio specialising in delicious print work.

Did you have any business knowledge prior to setting up your company? 
I had worked as a production assistant for a commercial production company making TV commercials for a couple of years before starting my degree at St Martins, which helped teach me how to multi-task. After my degree I worked at CDT for a year and a half, where I learnt a huge amount about the process of working with clients, budgeting, pitching, presenting and so on, as well as about pure design. Then I got a place on NESTA's Creative Pioneer Programme, where we were taught a lot about the nuts and bolts of running a business. I run We Made This on my own, and share a studio with two other design companies, David Pearson Design and Fitzroy & Finn.

London Design Guide designed by We Made This

When you were growing up what did you want to be? What happened which made you become what you are now?I'm not sure I ever wanted to be anything particular. Actually, scratch that, I wanted to be a film director. That's why I started working in commercials, but after a while I realised it wasn't for me. While I was looking at jobs in that industry, as research I read a book called something like Diaires of Film-makers - it was a Faber & Faber book which detailed the daily lives of a variety of folk working in the film industry. One of the diaries was from a film producer, and she talked about going to meet the guys who were making the poster for her film. I knew instantly that I didn't want to make films, but to make posters instead.

What do you wish you had been told in college/university about the real world?
Nothing. College is a good time to dream. Though it might have been useful to know how long it takes to pay off a student loan. But heck, even if I had known, I'm not sure I would have done anything differently.

IPA identity designed by We Made This

Have there been any big mistakes/failures which have lead to success?
NESTA were offering business funding to some of the folk on the course, and I didn't succeed in getting that funding. I think if I had got it, my journey might have been quite different. Whether that would have been a better or worse sort of different... tricky to know. I'm happy where I am though.

What advice would you give to yourself 5 years ago?
 Get out of the house and find a studio. Book more holidays. Don't try and ride across that roundabout at full speed - you'll break your arm. Again.

What can you only learn on the job?
You learn a huge amount once you start work, and you keep learning. Don't expect to be perfect when you start. But be honest about the fact that you're not perfect.

How important do you think having an online presence is and how signficant a role does your blog play in marketing your brand/service? 
 I find it difficult to quantify it to be honest. Obviously having work online is really important - people rely on being able to see your stuff immediately. Jobs are just starting to come in on the back of the blog, which is great. I'm in the middle of building a new site - once that's up, I'll have a bit of a marketing push.

Teenage Cancer Trust promotional material designed by We Made This

Who would be your dream client?
The one with a solid and well thought out brief, as well as a realistic budget, who then lets us just get on with the creative work. And who says thank you at the end of the job.

What aspirations do you have? do you see We Made This expanding further?
I want to do more self-initiated work, I've kind of been letting the blog take the place of that for the past few years. As for expansion... I've got a few ideas bubbling around my head, but nothing firm just yet.

You've had interns at We Made This, what do you look for when choosing potential graduates to join your team?
Brilliant work and a general air of loveliness.

Drawing on walls pt. 6: Vienna

Baby Boom! - Somorjai Kiss Tibor

Graphic artist Somorjai Kiss Tibor’s latest exhibition at the Bártok Galéria - F+É+N+Y+S+T+Á+C+I+Ó+K , has really got us thinking. ..

The bulk of his work - a series of glittering, embrionic  images with baby motifs dotted around the compotion - can be viewed in one of two ways:  The first is that these are images depicting destruction and loss of innocence.  When viewed from largest to smallest, these images seem to depict the tale of an overpopulated society (represented by the floating babies)crumbling in on itself, sucked down into a deep, black hole.  

Alternatively, one could read these images as an affirmation of life. A celebration of man’s discoveries in the universe surrounding us, the progress we’ve made in discovering the origins of our own creation and a salute to the future generations who will continue this research. The spherical shape in the centre of the composition could easily be a planet or a cell - the bright bursts of colour indicating the changes in the molecular structure as an infant develops in the womb.

Accompanying these images are a series of photographs tracing the artist’s footsteps through the seasons – further exploring the exhibition's underlying theme of ’movement’.  As the artist walks through the autumn leaves into the winter snow, we see how the world changes and develops and how man leaves his mark on the environment. 

What do you think Somorjai Kiss Tibor's work means? Leave a comment below!

Zsuzsi Csiszér @ Art Blokk

 

We first became aware of Zsuzsi Csiszér’s work at Budapest’s annual Art Fair at the Műcsarnok whilst reporting for Artsthread.com.  Her poignant, foto-realistic, faux-collage paintings have quickly made her one of our favourite contemporary female artists. Zsuzsi is currently exhibiting at the Art Blokk gallery in the Corvin centre and we went along to take a look...

The exhibition develops the same themes which Zsuzsi has been exploring for the past few years such as the pressures faced by 21^st century women and the way femininity is portrayed and condemned by mass media. In one series of claustrophobic portraits, Zsuzsi traps her subjects in an extreme close-up, their faces ‘slashed’ through a technique of layered oil paints which imitate rips and tears in the canvas. Others are suffocated beneath plastic, their beauty commodified and preserved like a piece of expensive furniture. There is a blatantly violent overtone to these portraits which, at times, is quite unnerving...

While these portraits seem to deal with the trappings of beauty, Zsuzsi's other painted collages such as Mother Curtain and Why Not? deal with other pressing issues faced by women today. Mother Curtain hints at pressures of marriage (specifically arranged marriages), while Why Not? suggests the inner conflicts of a woman facing peer pressure over sex, cigarettes and other vices.

Larger pieces such as There Are People Who Like This and You Have to Know What is the Topic of This Picture are a barrage of mixed media imagery and slogans erupting in a glamorous, explosive mess. The images are instantaneous, they grab your attention and draw you in with their vivid colours and suggestive subject matter.  However, take a closer look and you will spot some hidden details - motifs of teddy bears and ducklings, revealing the lost innocence of the women who have fallen victim to the trappings of mass media culture.

Drawing on walls pt. 5: London

In Movement: Inauguration of the new Spiritusz Galéria

 

 

 

The Spiritusz Galéria has moved! Previously located on the Pest side of Budapest, the contemporary art space has packed its bags and settled into the previous exhibition hall of its ‘mother institution’ the Várfok Galéria. In celebration of the gallery’s evolution, 13 contemporary artists from the fields of photography, sculpture, painting and video art have been asked to produce a piece exploring the theme of ‘movement’.

You can learn more about the exhibition by clicking HERE
or read my previous review of the Spiritusz Galéria @ Budapest Art Fair  HERE

Reefs of Noise: László Mulasics

Reefs of Noise is the premier exhibition of the new and improved Várfok Galéria. Celebrating the life and works of the painter László Mulasics (1954-2001), Reefs of Noise showcases a selection of his purest paintings from, arguably, his most important creative period.

László emerged from Hungary's New Sensibility movement in the 1980’s as a figurative painter creating sensual and mysterious works awash with expressive colours. But, by the mid 80’s Laszlo put down his paint brush and began experimenting with bee’s wax. This was a long experimental period for László as the encaustic technique is notorious for being one of the most difficult mediums to master.  However, László's passion for his materials led him to discover new ways to manipulate and control the wax, making him one of a very small, niche group of creatives who can truly call themselves ‘encaustic artists’.

 Locked Stadium

1988 encaustic, lead, bronze sieve, wood on wood panel 

During this period László also shunned his colourful palette in favour of a darker aesthetic.  “While the majority of Mulasics’ work from the mid 80’s and early 90s was incredibly dark and contained a lot of black, we should be careful not to label it his ‘Black Period’ but rather his  ‘Colour Minimal’ period,” explains Varfok’s resident art historian Kriszti Kovács.  “His quiet approach to colour does mean his paintings are melancholic but they are also very meditative.”

Indeed, László Mulasics’ work has a certain meditative aura about it - his strong painted gestures have a mysterious and ambiguous quality to them which perhaps they would not have had were he to have worked with a more vibrant colour scheme. The ambiguity of Mulasics' work can be attributed to his keen interest in nature, scientific discoveries and the cosmos.

 Constellation

1996, encaustic, oil, enamel, canvas

Motifs re-occur in several of his pieces such as the dog, horse and the figure at Hang Csou bay. Most of  these  motifs were taken from antique books which Mulasics enjoyed collecting - if only for the diagrams and illustrations contained within. The cabinet at the back of the Várfok is dedicated to some of the motifs Mulasics was so fond of. These never before seen mixed media pieces present the motifs in copper ink within a bold geometric frame.

 Interferences

1998, encaustic, oil, enamel, canvas

What is most striking about the work of László Mylasics is the sheer scale of his work. When one takes into consideration the skill required to create such enormous pieces using  a technique as tricky as encaustic then our admiration towards this incredibly talented artist grows.
 
“His pieces are so large that they require a lot of space in order for us to truly appreciate them,” Kriszti smiles, “But I think our new gallery does him justice.” 

Untitled - 099 & 104

1997, encaustic, ink, copper, oil on paper

For more information about the exhibition, head over to the Várfok website 

Calum Ross interview on XpatLoop.com

Head over to xpatloop.com where I'm currently featured on their interviews page.
Xpatloop.com is a Hungarian website which serves the international community living within Budapest. I am among such interviewed expatriates as Catherine Dickens (the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens) answering such questions as 'what is never missing from your refrigerator?' Want to find out what I keep in the fridge? Sure you can handle it?  Read the full interview right here: http://www.xpatloop.com/interview/473

In Profile: Tímea Andorka

Timea Andorka first caught our attention at the 2010 Budapest Graphifest, where her poster entry for the Goetheorie competition was one of our firm favourites. After initially studying Philosophy at the University of Szeged before turned her talents towards graphic design and typography. Timea explores the 'visual display of non-visual thoughts' by experimenting with paper and type, stretching formal boundaries to create asethetically adventurous pieces whilst maintaining usability. In this One A Day exclusive, Timea talks us through the concepts behind some of her most recent works. 

Mérleg Könyve

My thesis project, the re-design of Mérleg Books - a publisher of essays in philosophy - was a summary of all my interests and studies –  philosophy, books, type and graphic design. I was inspired by Penguin Books’ Great Ideas series, and David Pearson’s design approach to each volume relying not so much on illustrative, but rather typographic sources. In this way I came up against the problem of the relationship between type and the paper carrying it. The leading role in the project was played by paper: paper manually crumpled, torn, burnt-out, soaked, punched or folded to form letters. As we are talking about three-dimensional objects the lighting, the various relations between light and shadow also became motifs in their own right.

Goetheorie

The same light/shadow relations are at the heart of the proposals I submitted to the Geotheorie competition. The title Optics/Chromatics refers to a place where Goethe points out that unlike Newton he isn’t so much interested in the science of sight but rather in the theory of colours: he wants to demonstrate the way we actually experience colours, and not the way we are supposed to experience them according to the laws of mathematics. This debate is represented by the clash of the two letterform compositions: one is calculated, geometric, with sharp contours, the other relies on the impressionistic play of colourful shadows.

Goethe’s interest in the experience of colour outlines his scientific profile – which is the metaphor elaborated on by the installation Colour Profile. In this case the figurative element of the composition is the shadow, traditionally conceived of as a lack of light and colour, which however appears and gives the impression of a bust only when the coloured stripe is lit from the appropriate angle.

The Symptoms

I met The Symptoms during the production of Shadow Movie, an experimental short film on movement, silhouette and light - exactly the phenomena I’ve been interested in lately. It’s been inspiring to work with them as their experimental attitude and constant search for novelty drives me to find new solutions. The promotional material I created for the theatrical performance Alibi is based on free associations by Symptoms-members: “mirror, self inspection, revue, interrogation, and balloon” and it was designed with the intention to lure people into the theatre.


To find out more about Timea Andorka's work visit her blog: www.felantix.blogspot.com
or view her portfolio: www.behance.net/felantix

Perspectives on Serigraphs

This past year has been an exciting one for Printa. Since opening in January 2010, the Budapest based screenprinting studio has exhibited numerous works from the likes of the Swiss Urban Salon and Supalife. To celebrate their first birthday, Printa is exhibiting a collection of limited edition serigraphs produced by some of Hungary’s finest contemporary artists.

Exploring the mediums of watercolour painting, street art, photography, drawing and graphic art, the majority of the pieces were produced specifically for the exhibition and were created in the Printa workshop.

To read my full review go over to artsthread.com