When we find ourselves in front of a painter’s pictures we immediately look for points of reference such as which school are we dealing with, who are its masters and we wonder where to place the artwork. However terrible it may sound, it is completely natural as this is how the human brain is wired. At first glance, we look for motifs that will help us to speed up the solving of the task. If our brain did not work like this we would not to be able to cross a road with a lot of traffic as we would have to take in and process each bit of information individually. Well the beauty of painting is that once we have finished compulsively running through the first motifs and thought structures, it is then that you get to the real pleasure.
Then comes an understanding of the work, the sampling and reception of the artist’s unique thoughts. This applies to Réka J. Ferencz’s artworks as well.
Anyone with a little knowledge of painting can obviously see, at a first glance that the „isms” of the 20th century have had a strong influence on her. There is a bit of a cubist feel, a bit of a surrealistic atmosphere, a little spice from the Mediterranean and a Northern feel too! There is nothing wrong with that at all. When this harmony rings out in one of her pictures it sounds fantastic together.
She creates her own new system of connections. Réka J. Ferencz is well able to offer this experience and feeling.
It might well be that this picture is Chagallian, however clear this is from the picture ,the end result will be a „Réká-esque” picture as seen in her 2008 work Town and Violin. The same goes for the 2009 The Fall of Man (Falling into Sin)
Some of Réka J. Ferencz`s s pictures are undeniably feminine.
An example is Shade (2007) or the 2009 Ocean`s Soul or also from 2009 Fleeing Dream (Departing Dream), and we can continue with the Annoying Lack of Suspicion from 2011.
These works form an intrinsic part of her life’s work. They do not seek to be more or less than pictures, visual signs and thoughts that are natural parts of the process of an artistic maturing.
Let’s look at another direction present in the artist’s creation. For the sake of simplicity let’s call these philosophical pictures. Such is the 2007 Gutenberg Galaxy, Opening to Infinity, the 2008 The Depth of the Window, the 2009 Developing Recognition and the latest There is Something Beyond Time (2012). These somewhat pre-cursive works have close links to the artist’s surrealist bent. Their primary theme is a philosophical thought, a space mapped out through dissection, but despite the precedents of the „constructive – constructed space” there is a clear passage towards a serene and surreal space experience. One of the best end results of this series is the 2011 Broken Dawn painting.
The exhibition guest is in an easy position when coming face to face with Réka J. Ferencz’s paintings as the artist spoils us with her expressive pictures’ titles.
This offers the visitors a very useful point of reference for receiving the works with the words facilitating the formation of a close friendship with the painter’s soul. And if someone takes the trouble to read Réka J. Ferencz’s own thoughts or has the chance to speak to the artist in person he or she will soon come to realise that there are expressive and deep thoughts behind the visual signs and systems of symbols that we find in her art.
„Painting has given me the conviction that I can find the way back to myself, that there is a world where I can become myself and be myself. In this world there is the unreal, reality and the surreal, I circulate freely within this word. I allow myself today’s artistic freedom, to disregard the rules and avoid limitations, playing, I lose myself. I don’t conform, I don’t pretend, I paint for myself. I perceive, observe the processes and continuity going on around me, and desperately call for a more human and liveable world.”
Golovics Lajos - Art Historian
Happiness and sorrow, joy and pain – the depths of the soul. Houses, lakes, music instruments, a figure in cheery and gloomy brown, in melting blue, in dream-green – the authentic representation of thoughts and sensibility, painted poetry. In here and now, but still timeless. Réka J. Ferencz’s paintings penetrate our thoughts and emotions. As the deep brown eye in fear of the world suddenly assumes or discovers a joyful shade
– How someone becomes an artist is one of life’s eternal mysteries. What lead you to start painting?
– On the one hand maybe it’s in my blood, both on my grandmother’s and grandfather’s sides, there were artists in the family. I was surrounded by wonderful paintings at home, so already as a child I was able to enjoy them. Ever since I can remember, there has been a strong desire in me to create, the impulse was there to come up with something, to devise and carry out something. That is why I paint in this style. There are no random brush strokes in my pictures. All is pictured beforehand and planned. But to answer your question, if my husband had not been struck by awe on seeing my first works I would probably not have become a painter. I have to thank him for the strength, the background and the security he assured me to be who I am.
– However many artists there are, there are worlds, ways of creating. What is going on inside you, do your great predecessors influence you as you stand there in front of the canvas?
– The most important thing for me is that I love to paint. For me a work is not just a few brush strokes and the painting is done, I feel an inner necessity to create, to work the canvas. I sense my brush being moved by the colours of Leonardo da Vinci, by René Magritte, who made thoughts visible on canvas and by Chagall, the painter of poetry. They see inside of me, they are my masters. I spend a lot of time studying their works and this shapes my creations on the one hand. On the other, I live in modest surroundings, in a simple house with simple furniture. I like to have ordinary people around me and this simplicity is reflected in my works. I don’t complicate my life, if I don’t have to. I want to create something beautiful and reflect natural emotions. And I get this from those who are open to art and have a need for the beautiful and the simple. My pictures take them somewhere and my titles also provide some kind of direction. At the same time a different effect is produced in each person and they share it with me. That is how I realise that a given painting covers more thoughts than they were in me.
– The viewers are taken to a higher plane or dimension by your pictures. Not only their content but also the formal composition „floats” above us. Am I right in saying that between the real and the surreal you show a world that goes even beyond everyday life?
– An exhibition of my work was held in the Manhattan National Arts Gallery. I was asked to write down a few thoughts for the occasion. I wrote that painting has convinced me that it can lead me back to myself, that there is a world where I can become myself and where I can be myself. You were right in saying my creative world is equally filled with the real, the surreal and the unreal. I can move freely within these dimensions I can paint whatever I like, all I need is for me to like it, I don’t do it to please others.
– New York is what Paris used to be, a centre for the arts. Allow me to congratulate you on your exhibition. Tell us, how did it go?
– In short, fantastically! A longer answer is that I am grateful to fate that I was given the chance to exhibit at the National Arts Gallery. It is a big name for the locals as they looked at me like a freak: how did I land up there, from so far away!? Before every opening ceremony, inauguration I am filled with doubts and anxieties. Here in Hungary I know people understand my pictures, they spark off their thought processes as they live amongst the same social tensions as I do. When I exhibit abroad I am full of fears as to whether my messages will reach the visitors. The titles translated into a foreign language do not always cover the original title, this is a particular problem...I was unsure whether those living in the US share the same worries, feelings and thoughts as a European. Well, I can reveal they do! And as I had a customer who bought two of my works I don’t think it would be immodest of me to call my New York exhibition a success.
– Where does your creative inspiration come from?
– My emotions. Whatever I am going through, will, sooner or later appear on the canvas. That has to be taken on board and be accepted not just by me but by my family too. But in this way, authentic emotions and thoughts are depicted on the canvas. I cannot paint commissioned works. I have a block if I have to satisfy someone else’s artistic demand or expectation. Once I tried to do this, and spent days staring at the empty canvas.
– Your pictures float lyrically between dream and reality. What is your artistic goal or dream?
–I do indeed have many but what I desire most is an exhibition in Paris. I love Paris and to walk around its streets knowing my pictures are hung up on a gallery wall would really be an uplifting feeling... But I haven’t taken a single step to realise this as then I could say that I have achieved everything I longed for and it’s quite possible, I am afraid, I’d lose the present enthusiasm and determination I have. It is pleasant and comfortable for me to feel this driving force. It makes me feel even better that my job is to paint, paint and paint.
András Váczy - journalist
Today, the category of beauty is definitively empty. If one admires a picture for its beauty it says nothing. The highest value should be placed on authenticity. What is genuine, and what is authentic, is what we find to be beautiful and important. The authenticity of Réka Ferencz J.’s art comes from each piece’s interconnectedness to every other piece within the collection. Therefore by today’s upscale artistic standards I can state that the pictures of Réka Ferencz J. are beautiful and important.
It is as if we can witness chapters of a monumental novel painted upon the canvases. This novel is one which discloses a complex world to us in which we are carefully guided by the painter. This novel belongs to the painter, she feels at home in this world, and alongside her are all of us. Removed is the feeling of having lost our way.
It is now up to us to become absorbed within the novel, whose chapters are unfolding before us. Can we position ourselves between the houses shown in the picture; can we experience the everyday lives of the residents who only appear in these exceptional moments; can we recognise their happy or sad emotional state? And if we were to continue further on, to another picture, this story is also continued as well. The pictures are free from contradictions in which their gentle shapes adapt to the deflections of our own lenses. The harmony of colours the painter utilizes can only be described as the affectionate mood of a warm hug.
The pictures are not only connected in their characteristic colours and gently curved shapes but also by love. It’s especially great to experience a moment in which a picture is sad, or when a given chapter of the novel is tragic. However, no matter how difficult the depicted moment is, the all-fulfilling love dignifies it.
These pictures express how beyond our present it is possible to find something that is neither in the past nor in the future. This is the presences of a higher quality which we cannot experience in our ordinary state. The message we attain from viewing the art of Réka Ferencz J. is an opportunity to witness this higher quality. Everything that brings us closer to our present moment and to its real significance is exciting. It was no mere accident that the two words present and significance are so similar in Hungarian.
In the pictures of Réka Ferencz J. these two words - present and significance - unite. She unveils to us a story which only she can see the way that it appears in front of our eyes. And we may often have a feeling that reality is like this but so far we haven’t been able to notice it.
Maybe as children we viewed things with a penetrating glance, but now that only exists as a memory for most of us. However, Réka Ferencz J. recalls these forgotten and buried memories for us and we can find them within her pictures as our lost glass beads.
To put it more simply, her pictures are dreamlike. But in reality this is hard because neither the world around us nor the tasks that await us are simple. The point is that the artist can see while awake what we can only see with a relaxed mind in our dreams. So she says, “What you see before you is not only a dream. That’s also reality. It exists. Take it seriously. Rely on it. Walk around it. Take it into your hands. Let’s rejoice together that this is the way it is.”
We can feel the lyric sadness of the pictures of Réka Ferencz J. seeing the colours or the titles. Nevertheless, we can see a calming joy within each of them. It is not a loud joy, but the kind of joy that makes the experience significant to us. This is the joy of somebody who is aware of the existence of sadness, but nevertheless she finds the reality beautiful and fascinating.
This is an elevated state of mind and this is something that the viewers can take home with them from this exhibition.
It is important because the intentions of artists can only be called honest if they want to lift your soul. People can pull you down to the bottom even by the use of a harsh or dirty word. It’s not hard to do. But what is hard is lifting people’s souls. Nowadays when we feel so heavy, when fewer and fewer people think that they live in a golden period of history, it is more important than anything that there are people who intend to and are able to uplift our souls. Somebody whose hand we can cling onto, knowing that where they lead us more significant and nicer things await. This is not turning away from reality but instead it is experiencing the true face of reality.
I would like for you to become understanding and sensitive readers of the novel which is disclosed to us by Réka Ferencz J. and to recognize pieces of yourselves within this artwork.
Tibor Bornai - musician, composer
When we find ourselves in front of a painter’s pictures we immediately look for points of reference such as which school are we dealing with, who are its masters and we wonder where to place the artwork. However terrible it may sound, it is completely natural as this is how the human brain is wired. At first glance, we look for motifs that will help us to speed up the solving of the task. If our brain did not work like this we would not to be able to cross a road with a lot of traffic as we would have to take in and process each bit of information individually. Well the beauty of painting is that once we have finished compulsively running through the first motifs and thought structures, it is then that you get to the real pleasure.
Then comes an understanding of the work, the sampling and reception of the artist’s unique thoughts. This applies to Réka J. Ferencz’s artworks as well.
Anyone with a little knowledge of painting can obviously see, at a first glance that the „isms” of the 20th century have had a strong influence on her. There is a bit of a cubist feel, a bit of a surrealistic atmosphere, a little spice from the Mediterranean and a Northern feel too! There is nothing wrong with that at all. When this harmony rings out in one of her pictures it sounds fantastic together.
She creates her own new system of connections. Réka J. Ferencz is well able to offer this experience and feeling.
It might well be that this picture is Chagallian, however clear this is from the picture ,the end result will be a „Réká-esque” picture as seen in her 2008 work Town and Violin. The same goes for the 2009 The Fall of Man (Falling into Sin)
Some of Réka J. Ferencz`s s pictures are undeniably feminine.
An example is Shade (2007) or the 2009 Ocean`s Soul or also from 2009 Fleeing Dream (Departing Dream), and we can continue with the Annoying Lack of Suspicion from 2011.
These works form an intrinsic part of her life’s work. They do not seek to be more or less than pictures, visual signs and thoughts that are natural parts of the process of an artistic maturing.
Let’s look at another direction present in the artist’s creation. For the sake of simplicity let’s call these philosophical pictures. Such is the 2007 Gutenberg Galaxy, Opening to Infinity, the 2008 The Depth of the Window, the 2009 Developing Recognition and the latest There is Something Beyond Time (2012). These somewhat pre-cursive works have close links to the artist’s surrealist bent. Their primary theme is a philosophical thought, a space mapped out through dissection, but despite the precedents of the „constructive – constructed space” there is a clear passage towards a serene and surreal space experience. One of the best end results of this series is the 2011 Broken Dawn painting.
The exhibition guest is in an easy position when coming face to face with Réka J. Ferencz’s paintings as the artist spoils us with her expressive pictures’ titles.
This offers the visitors a very useful point of reference for receiving the works with the words facilitating the formation of a close friendship with the painter’s soul. And if someone takes the trouble to read Réka J. Ferencz’s own thoughts or has the chance to speak to the artist in person he or she will soon come to realise that there are expressive and deep thoughts behind the visual signs and systems of symbols that we find in her art.
„Painting has given me the conviction that I can find the way back to myself, that there is a world where I can become myself and be myself. In this world there is the unreal, reality and the surreal, I circulate freely within this word. I allow myself today’s artistic freedom, to disregard the rules and avoid limitations, playing, I lose myself. I don’t conform, I don’t pretend, I paint for myself. I perceive, observe the processes and continuity going on around me, and desperately call for a more human and liveable world.”
Ferencz J. Réka
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