Interview with Judit Szendrei — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Judit, your stamp mosaics are not only visually stunning but also tell complex stories. Can you share what initially drew you to use postage stamps as your primary medium and how you see this as a continuation or departure from traditional Pop Art?

Everything started with my daughter Zsofi who has Down syndrome. I was looking for a generative occupation which offers cheer and joy in the same time. I took home from my workplace envelopes in which there were still stamps in 2015. We cut at first the stamps off from the envelopes, unglued and dried them and also sorted them after. Thus, I got many, many stamps hard to just throw them out. I found out to draw some shape out with the help of the stamps. I did not like my first stamp-mosaic, I destroyed it. In the beginning this activity started simply to be a hobby, a kind of leisure activity offering joy when I was ready with a picture.

Some time went by when after seeing an Andy Warhol exhibition I realized that something common was between us: my pieces can also be understood by anyone. What kind of art direction is this? A special direction of Pop Art, Mosaic-Collage-Montage made of stamps. For the sake of interest, one of my most loved pictures was made of Andy Warhol.

You've mentioned working collaboratively with family members to create your art. How does this family dynamic influence the creative process, and what have you learned from merging these personal relationships with professional practices?

It is wonderful to take part in this family-project! I have spoken already about my daughter but I did not mention that she started to colour drawings upon experiencing my artistic work. Her favourable colour books are those of mandalas. I have a picture tiled Together with my Daughter which characterizes best my relationship to her. My mother who was born in 2025 is living together with us. She soaks and dries the stamps for hours and when I present her a new picture is saying always, Wonderful! My picture Carillon offers a kind of statue to her and her family be presenting a unique family tree. My most important co-artist is my husband. My task is “only to glue”, everything out of this is being done by him. I have made several pictures for him always when he was away on work. I wish to present one only out pf the, titled Love.

The meticulous process of creating your artworks—from steeping and sorting stamps to the final assembly—is incredibly detailed. Could you walk us through a typical creation process for one of your pieces? What are some of the most challenging aspects you face during this process?

I can devide my pictures into two large groups. The first is when I want my viewers to see or feel something coming from myself through my picture while the other is when it is a stamp or a series of stamps which offer me the inspiration to create a picture. Just for an example, I have got a rather new picture titled Autumn. In our country this is the time of the year when nature shines in thousands of colours. This is the notion I wanted to paint with my stamps. If one wishes to find the variety of colours with stamps there are the British stamps to search for. This time I widened the circle and included stamps issued in the whole Commonwealth. I sorted, sampled for days trying to find red, yellow, green and brown stamps. I was wondering not only over countries but ages as well. I found stamps from the era of Elizabeth II, George VI and V, Eduard VII and even Queen Victoria. All of these stamps were received from my stamp collector friends saying that they were worthless for them. I drew triangles first and glued on them stamps of similar colour. I ordered them into hexagons paying attention to colours of course and finally I glued them onto the board waiting for them with the white background.

You have had the unique opportunity to present your work to an international audience, including presenting a piece to Pope Francis. How do you hope your work impacts viewers emotionally and culturally, especially in such diverse settings?

We have been in many countries already to present my pictures. They are in order of time as follows: England, Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium and China. People of different ages, different religion visited these exhibitions. I held workshop also for mentally handicapped young people. It was interesting to see that almost for everyone a different picture was the favourite, there was no winner at all. People like to reed the texts I write along with every picture and sometimes it is hard to believe for the viewers that they see pictures made of stamps. When they learn my artistic career people are saying that it is never late to start a new activity offering joy and happiness. They are also saying that it is a positive feature that I create value with thrown out materials and in the same time I made the visitors to see the wonderful world of stamps.

*Year of the Dragon* and Judit Szendrei, Beijing, China, 798 Art Zone, June 15, 2024

Repurposing materials is a significant aspect of your artwork. How do you approach the concept of sustainability in your practice, and what message do you hope to convey about consumption and waste through your art?

It is not only the pollution because repurposing materials is important for me. It is also my aim to preserve tangible memory by using any type of handiwork together with stamps thus stitch works, embroideries made by my grandmother, my mother and even by myself get new life. On my picture Our Heritage I combined stamps featuring women and men of different parts of Hungary in their tradition clothes with lace works received from my grandmother.

Since beginning your journey as a stamp artist, how has your artistic style evolved? Are there particular experiences or influences that have prompted shifts in your approach or aesthetic over the years?

The 10th anniversary of making of my picture will happen in 2025. The whole process of creation is the learning and development themselves. I am getting to know more and more and I dare to try also more and more. When I started to paint, I used the whole stamp while later I cut them into pieces if there was a need to do so. I use materials other than stamp too should it be peacock feather of chess piece. I have already printed photos on the back the stamps and made also pieces of three dimensions. We travel much, make excursions, go to exhibitions, into theatres, concerts. Whatever I see, listen to and feel infiltrates into my inner world and turns up later in my pictures. My wish is to convey joy and happiness to the people or in other words simply to make their life to be more beautiful. I follow what is happening in the world and “fight” against was using my own means. The story of one of my last pictures originates also in the past. It was recorded after the last battle of the Napoleonic wars, the Waterloo battle that the sea of blood-red poppies was covering the battlefield even days after the battled was finished.

*Battlefield: yesterday. today! tomorrow?*

Among your many works, which piece do you feel most personally connected to, and why? How does this piece reflect your philosophical or artistic beliefs?

It is hard to answer this question. If I have to make a choice, however, I would name my picture titled Brothers’ Love. Vincent van Gogh had an extremely hard life. He did not get recognition at all but his life was full of hardship, deprivation. One single man put his faith in him, his brother Theo. The link between the two was that tight that Theo followed Vincent half a year even into death when he died at the young age of 37. Their grave is in a small French city, Auvers-sur-Oise. On my picture there is the church Notre Dame l’Assomption and all the sunflowers and citruses are just hints reminding the Dutch painter. These, nevertheless play the role of the background only. The main characters are the two men who walk side by side towards the church. We do not see their face but can identify both of them by their dress. Theo, the always elegant art dealer and the shabby, patchily dressed Vincent wearing his straw hat.

Having worked as an economist, do you find that your background in economics influences your artistic decisions or the themes you explore in your artworks?

I do not see the connection between my work and my art. Maybe someone from outside could discover it easier. The topics I present through my art works represent my private life more. I can it say for sure however, that when I can sit down to my table after a hard day all of the stress would be dissolved. I do not feel fatigue, tiredness when I am working on a picture, I do not experience the passage of time. The joy of creation is simply not comparable to anything.

What are your aspirations for the future of your art? Are there new techniques, materials, or themes you are eager to explore in upcoming projects?

The artist living in myself is calling for more time for herself. I am asking thus more time from the future, from the coming time. I would be glad to make workshops for handicapped people living to make them experience the joy of creation. I would like to meet and talk with people interested in my art. Such meetings energize and give strength for the further work.

Exhibition at the Hungarian Stamp Museum, Budapest, Hungary, 2021

How have the diverse reactions and feedback from different cultural audiences affected your perspective on your own work? Is there a particular critique or praise that has significantly influenced your approach to new projects?

I receive many rejections from people dealing with art as a profession. Someone told that what I do was not art at all. This has been the hardest… I receive in many, many positive reflections from art lovers in the same time. I talked to a foreign art historian this summer from whom I asked how can it happen that I received lessons on art only before my year of eighteen and I make, nevertheless art pieces he could see. His answer was: God leads your hand! I am very proud of the reference I received from the owner of one of the largest Hungarian private collection Antal-Lustig, Peter Antal:

“Pictures made by Judit are easy to understand and they always bear actuality inside. Sometimes they are astounding because of the technical bravura applied but they always would reach the viewers emotionally and bring joy for them.”

https://www.juditszendrei.com/