Built in nature

13. January 2023. – 18. February
MegnyitóOpening: January 12, 2023, 6:30 pm

The latest works of Târgu Mures-born Levente Herman (1976) once again bear witness to his subtle and lyrical style of painting. Herman’s painting is defined by the fact that he consistently portrays elements of reality, yet his scenes depict something essential and intangible that transcend the everyday world. The tingling sense of transcendence present in the puddled, littered landscapes of the earlier ‘New Paradise Project’ series, the floating dinner tables of ‘Traces’, the concrete blocks of the ‘Last Supper’, or the regular tree trunks of the ‘Rhythm of the Bark’, are most recently to be found even more strongly imbued in the current landscapes.

Endless snowfields, trees stiffened into poles, lights flashing in dense woodland, snow-covered countryside in the dark of night, people nowhere, yet everywhere one feels their presence, their traces. The unspoilt nature is dwindling and the perspective is narrowing. But Herman’s paintings help us to dream a new world, as the writer, Gergely Légrádi, says in a passage of text he wrote for the exhibited works: “as painters dream / so they dreamed a world / for themselves / with light / with gardens / with bread and wine.”