'Hard and Soft' | Synergy of the Contradictive

Exhibiting artists:
Éva Köves | painter
Mamikon Yengibarian | sculptor
Zsuzsa G. Heller | fine artist
Márton Dániel Gábor | video artist
Áron Gábor | fine artist

"Circle to circle," Filippo Brunelleschi wrote in his diary as he worked on the plans of the famous dome of Florence, the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore. Brunelleschi combines the late Gothic aspiration with the balanced design of the Renaissance, using organically interrelated, yet often contradictory motifs. The Forms he uses are built on each other, interconnected, while concepts are vulnerable and vague.

The similar character is felt in works of five Hungarian artists (Áron Gábor, Zsuzsa G. Heller, Daniel Márton Gábor, Éva Köves and Yengibarian Mamikon) presented in the Faur Zsófi Gallery. The exhibition titled "Hard and Soft" utilizes all three floors (basement, ground floor, upstairs) of the gallery, presenting Zsuzsa G. Heller's ceramic works and video installations, which evoke prehistoric forms and powers, the groundbreaking and innovative sculptures of Mamikon Yengibarian - an artist of armenian descent -, Éva Köves's large scale canvas abstracting from a photo-based reality, Áron Gábor's "nonfigurative portrait hall", and the 21th century cityscape photo-montages of the New York based Márton Dániel Gábor.

Visiting the gallery to explore the variety of art techniques (sculpture, painting, photography, video and ceramic art) and combining artistic visions, you can go from one level to another, from "circle to circle".
- Bálint Ferenczy art historian, curator of the exhibition

G. Zsuzsa Heller: "At this exhibition, I would like to continue my concept of colliding with shrill geometric shapes, splintering of space with spears, and the organic vegetative life-like patterns that I would like to present in the space with video projection. The porcelain shapes and the videos that frame them show the softness, transparency and diversity of nature. The video films are made by Márton Dániel Gábor, a video artist based in New York, who has been a creative partner of mine for many years. His photographs, videos and imaginations of the century-old cityscape overwhelm the typical visual art by bringing street art in it. From this, we selected material for the exhibition."

Gábor Áron: "The concept of the exhibition has been a concern of mine for a long time. I have used contrasting pairs in my art before. For example, geometric, man-made pieces and organic natural elements. Through this exhibition, through abstract faces and figures, I would like to formulate the diversity and the drama of the characters. I increase this drama by displaying my message in black, white, and gray. I have used the head motif for a long time, in the current series, with no colour, a clear, dramatic story has been achieved."  

Éva Köves: "I was pleased to receive the exhibition invitation, because in the last few years I was quite occupied with the concept of image within an image presented in an exhibition space, where the narrative of several smaller images creates a single large-scale construction. The hard and soft theme is also linked to this circle of thoughts, where rigid geometric slid squares appear in soft gestures."

Yengibarian Mamikon: "Human perception constantly analyzes, correlates and corrects. An artwork triggers tension if it disturbs the perception, if the perception of familiar things are in a controversy. Hard-soft, up-down, live-dead... In fact, these are complementary oppositions, their unexpected appearance inevitably recall the other pole as a benchmark. The contrast may be tense between the material and the shape, the expected and the formed surface, the usual and the displayed directions. The sculpture then becomes more than a slice of reality. It evokes new sensations, works through new nerve paths, leads to a deeper reality through new associations."