HORIZON
Ákos Révész
Description:
In the catalog: Floating Possibilities “A single decision is enough to make the still - floating possibilities burst forever.” Zsuzsa Rakovszky The viewer’s eternal question: what do we see in a painting? This question may well have arisen already in the Middle Ages, in the era of images created to tell stories; later, before the soaring, richly detailed baroque tableaux; or when confronted with the works of 20th - century abstract expressionism. What do we see, or what do we understand from the image? The viewer has no obligation here - only acceptance or rejection plays a role when encountering a work of art. Rejection dismisses all interpretation and distances the viewer from the piece. Acceptance, however, entitles the viewer to interpret freely - for themselves. Whether it is Rubens, Mark Rothko, or Ákos Révész. For this is not merely a representational task, but a conceptual and emotional one: why and how do the things visible within the pictorial space - colours, forms, visual elements - affect us? Ákos Révész, like many contemporary artists, does not easily hand over the key to deciphering the inner messages of his paintings. His series, in which the word entity appears with striking frequency, present floating forms set against dynamic backgrounds. Révész is at once expressive and surreal. His visual elements sometimes hover at the edge of reality, sometimes beyond it, and at other times appear as abstract shapes formed through passionate brushwork. Viewed from a thematic standpoint, there is something strangely uncertain within these works, a sense of constant transition. It is as if we were sensing the presence of organic, creature - like forms that flicker briefly before our eyes, passing through - from somewhere to somewhere else. The tiny flickering specks we sometimes perceive on the retina, or the swarming of mayflies, might come to mind when looking at these paintings. The vision feels both illusionary and very real. Révész works with a reduced colour palette, approaching his themes in an almost graphic manner. In the backgrounds - if they are indeed spatial atmospheres rather than pure colour fields - fragmented, shifting zones of colour appear, though grey, black, and bluish tones dominate overall. Entities - independent shapes, beings - are Révész’s protagonists. They flutter, they rise “into the heights,” and may vanish from view. They are possibilities: tiny soul - symbols of our existence, which can burst with a single decision. And what then becomes of them - and of us, the ones who decide? Thus, Révész not only offers dynamic, striking, and multiply interpretable images, but also issues a warning: a warning of danger, whether it be a natural catastrophe or a fracture within the soul. Of course, Révész’s painting is not prophetic in nature; yet, as in all significant works, there lies within it an added dimension, a message that urges reflection - the same protective impulse expressed in Rakovszky’s verse. And this is what makes contemporary art exciting and beautiful. And perhaps this offers an answer to the question posed at the beginning: what do we see in the painting? István Sinkó