Have no fear!

07. December 2012. – 12. January 2013.
MegnyitóOpening: December 6, 2012, 6:30 pm
MegnyitjaRemarks by: Nagy T. Katalin
Looking back at the past – almost five decades, Péter Ujházi’s oeuvre represents a unique tone within the Hungarian art scene.

Even though this oeuvre embraces different periods, Ujházi’s characteristical way of painting as well as the motives he uses become a richly woven myth. Initially, Ujházi proceeds from reality: he reacts to the happenings of his day-to-day life (just as diary notes), but the spectator is very soon taken far away from this secure basis.

By changing the point of views and the perspectives within the composition, Ujházi destabilizes the spectator who suddenly finds himself in a surreal and whirling world populated by strange creatures. Vivid colours, sketchy but well-portrayed characters, bizarre animals, railways, crowdy streets…

In the past years, these familiar spaces have expanded into a cosmic-sized world: planets, the encounter and (even more) the collision of different solar systems are to unfold recently in front of the spectator. Witness of these day-to-day stories developing on the works, one will discover on them the crude signs of art brut and the sincerity of the children?s drawings too. Neverthless, behind these characteristics lays a serious vision about society and a personal critic about our world.

Like the old wise man told stories to the community he belonged to, Ujházi is the narrator behind the works, he tells stories about how he sees our accelerated, chaotic world, the uncertain relationships, the dusty suburban architecture and the destruction of nature and planets.

Beyond the everyday scenes lays universal memory. Thus the topic can be a concrete historical moment – The Flight of Jellasics (1973) – or a broader social environment – Angyalföld (2012) – apart from the individual associations, the pictures ? as true myths ? hold a universal meaning preserving the traces of our past and traditions.

The simple and sometimes banal sentences – such as have no fear!, coming – going, I am not distressed etc. – take part in this entity, and placed in the context of the scenes they seem to become magic runes. Spell-words which beside protecting the paintings might take part in the maintain of our world.

Although Ujházi shows us a negative ending, not everything is lost, as the title of one of the exhibited works and that of the exhibition says: Have no fear!