Alexandra Hegedűs

Visual artist

Looking back, I believe my art was always about some sort of observation, researching, experimenting. I started with scanning and copying the world, later I became interested in the possible artistic usage of different materials and techniques. In addition, the connection between human perception and visual arts grabbed my attention. I created a series of paintings where I combined my knowledge of human vision and visual psychology with my technical experiments in order to challenge viewers. From 2017 I incrementally left figurative art, and created abstract artworks, which had a combination of unusual materials and several techniques, a kind of “technical proliferation” as essence. By the end of 2021 I simplified my technical tools, and turned my attention—besides the questions of abstract painting—again to visual perception. I choose the basic element (in the classical sense of meaning) of painting, the brushstroke for the main character of my new paintings. I gather enlarged brushstrokes into simple compositions, which give me opportunity to analyze not only effects between colors, but the communication between the displayed shapes and the shape of the carrier (the canvas). Nevertheless, the main topic of my paintings is an illusion referring to a paradox; the brushstrokes are not actually brushstrokes, and instead of the seemingly expressive gestures they are made with a precise and time-consuming work. For the planning I use digitalized brushstrokes, which are later printed in the needed size for creating stencils. My paintings are made by applying acrylic paint, spraypaint and these stencils. I also keep applying some elements of my previous technical experiments, such as the lacquer-glue-paint mixture, which dries to an unusual, thick, but translucent layer. I use this mixture to create the uppermost brushstroke, in fact, highlighting the appearing shape and composition of the painting. As an outcome of this process, my works question the borders between the traditional styles of abstract painting – mostly sorted by the different attitudes of the creating process (for example geometric abstraction and abstract expressionism). In some cases, the brushstrokes form shapes, which evoke conventional symbols, visual signs (e.g. X, =, Ø, II, ~). These paintings talk about my interest towards the connections between visual psychology and visual communication, role of visual preconceptions. Thus, what kind of things have influence on the viewers’ interpretation of the composition? Since title can definitely be one of the things influencing the viewer, I usually don’t give meaningful titles to my paintings, providing space for free assotiation.

Pécsi Tudományegyetem Művészeti Kar (PTE-MK)

Budapest