Botond Gagyi
Born 1992 in Tîrgu-Mureş, Romania. Lives and works in Cluj, Romania
Botond Gagyi is inspired by found images and personal photographs to explore the new reality of contemporary life. By oscillating between construction and deconstruction, omissions, repainting, erasures and piling up of paint, the artist explores a reality that lacks depth and authenticity, where individuals are alienated from their own self, and relationships are no longer real.
His dynamic work is moody and dramatic, drawn upon profoundly personal memories and collective trauma, with the prevalence of a disquieting calmness. With figures merged into the abstract space as extension of their physical and emotional experience, his paintings become tableaus to listen to, and not only an image-surface for plain visual pleasure. At the same time, through his characters' often colourful and fashionable attires, his work is characterised by a contemporary visual aesthetic and communicates a ray of hope.
Botond Gagyi obtained his BFA and MFA from the Painting Department, University of Art and Design in Romania in 2015 and 2017 respectively. He is currently a PHD candidate where his research is focused on figurative representation under the sign of distortion. Gagyi's work has been awarded in multiple art competitions in Romania and Poland and it is held in private collections in Hungary, Romania, Germany, Sweden, France, Panama, and the USA.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include: Abstract Mood, Estopia Art Gallery, Bucharest, Romania (2021); Solo show during Kulturtage Ehrenbreitstein, Theater am E'stein, Cologne, Germany (2020); The Night Watch, Museum of Arts Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania (2019); Alchemic Body, Fire Air Water Earth, THE LINE Contemporary Art Space, London (2019); Start Point Prize 2017, Prague National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
