Eszter Bognár — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Biography

Eszter Bognár is an artist currently living and working in Budapest, Hungary. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Painter – Visual Representation Artist from Eötvös Loránd University in 2017. Through painting, her practice seeks to explore the different elements of the natural world from abstractions and patterns found in nature. She creates textures and layers while discovering relationships between the colors and the unexpected structures
2020 Dec - New York School of the Arts
Mixed media course
2014 – 2017 ELTE Savaria University Center, Bachelor of Arts in Painter – Visual Representation Artist
2015 Dec Florence Academy of Russian Art, Anatomy drawing & portrait painting, Italy
Exhibitions/ArtFairs:
2021 March – “The body” in NYSA and HUB Galleries, NYC
2021 Jan – Lights for the Future, Corriere dell’Arte Contemporary Art Magazine, Italy, Torino
2020 Nov – MATER, International Art Digital Exhibition, Milano
2020 Oct – Godot ART Fair 2020, Godot Institute of Contemporary Art, Budapest
2020 August – VédElem, Rugógyár Galéria, Budapest
2019 Oct – Godot Art Fair, Bp
2018 Dec – AB OVO, Bp
2018 Dec – Godot pop-up YG Art Fair, Bp
2017 Dec – Godot pop-up YG Art Fair, Bp
2017 May – EXIT-HIBITION, ELTE SEK, Szombathely

Artist Statement

„What does art mean to me? I think art is a creative force for culture with its mythical form and symbolic language. In my paintings nature is only symbolically identical with itself – a symbol of freedom, happiness, pain, emptiness hence emotions, where the landscape symbolizes human emotions. In my paintings I explore these feelings, where the landscape grows into a transcendent director, that is the image of our inner world/human soul. Imagination shapes the invisible and the intangible.

What first prompted you to think of becoming an artist?

Ever since I can remember art has always been a very significant part of my life. While other children in the kindergarten were playing with toys, I was happily painting and drawing with my watercolours and crayon sets. Even then it was art through which I could express my feelings the best. I still have those pictures. Back then, I was painting or drawing about imaginary landscapes in a deep artistic way.

What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?

I define myself as an abstract artist, a thinker and an explorer who likes to dig deep into the subject of my artwork. I have a scientific approach to art: I dissect, I explore, and I create. While I was a university student my artworks were figurative, but after I realized abstraction allows me to be more expressive in my creations. When I began exploring mixed media art, I knew I had found something that was going to change my way of creating art. Mixed media is a process of adding organic and inorganic materials to create texture in a painting that may not have any aspects of reality, but interprets reality in an abstraction.

What are you hoping to communicate to the viewer through your work?

The cultural concern and social message of my work is to demonstrate the interaction of the human inner world with the changing world. I think art is a creative force for culture with its mythical form and symbolic language. In my paintings nature is only symbolically identical with itself – a symbol of freedom, happiness, pain, emptiness hence emotions, where the landscape symbolizes human emotions. In my paintings I explore these feelings, where the landscape grows into a transcendent director, that is the image of our inner world/human soul. Imagination shapes the invisible and the intangible.

Can you explain the process of creating your work?

The inspiration can strike at any time, even in the middle of the night. Something may inspire me at the time I least expect it. The idea of a painting in my mind goes through a long way of configuring, conceptualizing and maturing. But there are some cases, it can just suddenly pop up and appear in a distinct visualized way thus triggering an immediate urge for me to start painting. This is what I really like because I feel I am inflow. Turning an artistic idea into a concrete painting can be varied. When I look at my half-finished painting and something is not what I really wanted or an element is falling out of context, I often redo it. So tests and faults are frequently taking place, but not always because some paintings are created in the flow without any hindrance.

What is your favourite part of the creative process?

My favourite part of the creative process is when I find a good composition. The composition is a very important element in the painting process because it can totally change the mood of a piece of art. I think balance, rhythm, colour and a focal point are essential to a successful composition. Colour is an amazing tool for composition. In a piece where I want something to hit hard, I’ll use the contrasting value of colour as well as a complementary colour.

Can you give us an insight into current projects and inspiration, or what we can look forward to from you in the near future?

One of my current projects is „In Transition – Layers” At the centre of this concept I focus on the human being as a personality, the organization of psychological systems, and examine its inner layers. The human being is constituted in the form of a unique and distinct individual. It contains a unique feature of each layer of our spiritual functioning (cognitive functions, emotional reactions, motivations, actions). According to Sigmund Freud’s deep psychological personality theories, unconscious processes play a decisive role in behaviour, all our manifestations being predetermined, the reason lies in the unconscious. In my work, I raise the question of how to get to the ID (instincts), the most ancient part of personality. ID encompasses all inherited, instinctive, and primitive aspects of personality. Our instinct is completely unconscious. Freud believed that all spiritual energy (libido) in the instinct comes from the self. Through how many and how many more layers do we reach and discover our instincts !? What structures and layers cover it, which all keep in mind the state of the outside world, within the limits of reality. In my work, I combine the layering of artistic materials with the layers of personal meaning. My paintings unfold in layers: I build layers of oil paints, acrylic, chrome and texture paste on canvas. Possibilities for visualizing different layers of personality (memories, states of mind, time layers) are unlimited with the mixed media techniques, so these layers partially or completely overlap each other, and then in some parts of the picture the lowest surface is visible again. The composition of the resulting painting is shaped by the textural effects given by the overlapping colours and the paint layers. In my work, I show that the layers covering personality do not completely overlap each other, the “instinct” can surface if we look for it.

Website www.szteeart.com

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