Contour exhibition

CONTOUR

Author: Réka Vikárius

Joint exhibition of Zita Majoros and Dániel Bálint Varga

During their joint work, Zita and Bálint discuss everything with each other, this time the works prepared for the first joint exhibition of the two artists were created independently, freely associated with the following two buzzwords: female face and contour . The chosen theme is not accidental, as the face motif also appears in Zita and Bálint's previous works, either in the form of serigraphs or as a graphic element of various design pieces and accessories. Thus, this point of connection was given, which is one in this Contour exhibition this time unfolds in a more raw, personal and honest light.

How does the female face intertwine with the motif of the contour?

In fact, contour lines are the first "technique" we use to draw people, houses or trees as children. In fact, Zita and Bálint returned to the basis and fundamentals of drawing or creation in order to put it in a new light and context.

But what are the first associations that come to mind about the female face?

Although the new works of the two artists are clearly distinguishable, not only in terms of the visual form language used, but also in terms of the approach to the subject, they still create a nice dialogue with each other.

In Zita's intuitive face collages , she was actually driven by the dimensions of change , more precisely the transformation of the female face and its features over time, the resulting feeling of conformity, the gesture of concealment and the mysterious. He was concerned with the question, what does the face say if we take it into parts, dissect it, paint it, re-shade it, and thus how long will it remain recognizable and our own face? The face fragments that appear on the serigraphs are actually selected art historical references: the artistic message of the original works is not important here, but instead evokes representations of the female face that transforms throughout history - and Zita also hid her own self-portrait in one of the works.

In connection with the natural, but often conscious transformation of our face, he actually became interested in the phenomenon of face contouring , also known in the beauty industry. It is interesting that this make-up technique, although you would not think it, is actually not related to the present day, but goes back several centuries. The art of shading the face, or sculpting the face if you prefer, dates back to the 1500s: stage actors contoured their faces with chalk and soot so that the audience could see their facial expressions from afar. According to Zita, the technique of contouring also reminded her of African masks: her contour ceramics were born from this.

While we hide or emphasize the features and talents of our face with different techniques, during the process we want to shape our own face according to our own idea. In Bálint's works, a kind of search for ideas also appears. In fact, it pushes and erases the boundaries or "contours" of conscious or unconscious stereotypes of the female and male face . What shape features make a face female or male? How do these preconceptions affect our self-image: how much do they distort it or do we identify with them? As Bálint also pointed out, he was not only examined from a formal point of view: while in his earlier works the use of color was the result of a much more intuitive process, now, in contrast, individual shades play a more conscious role in the content of meaning.

While the motif of the contour in Zita's serigraphs stems from a much more direct social phenomenon, in Bálint's works it takes on a more figurative meaning. He searches for the boundary between ourselves and our environment, as well as the aforementioned stereotypes: thus, in some of his works, the face can be clearly distinguished, and then reduced and transformed into completely abstract forms. And the abstract rhythms are associated with the passage of time and its exposure, which also creates a dialogue with the dimensions of change involved in Zita's works.