Mapping

The season-closing exhibition of the Vintage Gallery presents the latest works of Ádám Varga. The young artist’s debut exhibition is one of the stages in the systematic processing of a book of painting designs, a project begun in 2019. On the other hand, it is a reinterpretation of the concept of mapping in painting, in which, through the multiple meanings of the term, he also responds to the contradictions associated with maps, the technical process of painting and the attitude of the act of reception as mapping.

His paintings, as painted versions of a series in the book, span the range between digital image editing and analogue painting processes, and can be interpreted as a stretched/distorted replica of the four levels of the video game Tomcat, which debuted in the late 1980s. The game’s pixelated tracks and its visuality embodied in small details reflect a kind of pseudo-nostalgic mood, where the possibilities of interpretation range from appropriating and copying levels, to updating the game’s formal solutions from the 90s, to the contradiction between the notion of original artwork and reproduction.