SZILARD HUSZANK

Through the years, Huszank’s painting has steadily moved away from realistic coloration. His landscapes are increasingly flowing in most bright false colors–yellow, pink, sky-blue... This shift can be seen as a move toward autonomous painting, independent of representation, but also as an implicit critique of our increasingly alienated relationship with nature.

In recent years, the distance from representational realism has intensified further, and the paintings have become progressively more abstract. In a work such as “OP # 29, pp. 118–19,” the viewer must focus intently to discern faint suggestions of leaves and branches, and mentally “reconstruct” them into a natural scene. The vivid, dynamic brushwork evokes a deliberate connection to the tradition of Expressionist painting. Wolfgang Rihm’s already quoted statement that “in our time, when surrounding nature is endangered and retreating, the principles of the creaturely and the vegetative must find their realization in art” seems especially relevant here.Considering Huszank’s paintings, one gets the impression that color, form, and expressive gesture themselves take on a natural quality–and that painting, in a sense, replaces the natural landscape. His works become artificial natures, or reservoirs of energy in Rihm’s sense–while also offering a kind of sanctuary for our perception, which is worn down by the relentless visual overload of everyday life.

Press release courtesy Galerie Tanit, Munich/Beyrouth. Text: Peter Lodermeyer, Bonn.