– Zsolt Bodoni –
Art+Text Budapest is delighted to present the latest works of Zsolt Bodoni in the framework of a solo exhibition, the second one hosted by the Gallery following Forest in 2016.
The most recent works of Zsolt Bodoni (1975), who studied in Budapest (HU) and lives in Oradea (RO), speak the distinctive language of Bodoni's art: large-scale paintings rendered with gloomy, sombre colours and populated by dark, mysterious figures in bleak settings. Here, as well as in Bodoni's earlier works, the figures occupy a crucial role as they embody different concepts and ideas as well as pose numerous questions pertaining to the human condition. In the artist's words: "Figurative representation has always been a key point in my work. In recent years I’ve been interested in the idea of androgyny and the Jungian anima-animus theory. Androgyny among humans – physical, psychological, and cultural – is attested to from earliest history and across world cultures. I am interested in the idea of transformation and metamorphosis, in how bodies change into different bodies, and the relationship between aspects of sex, sexuality, and gender."
In Jungian theory the psyche is inherently androgynous, as it contains and embraces both feminine and masculine, regardless of gender. The anima and animus, both Jungian archetypes, are personifications of the subconscious that represent the opposite gender in a person. The advancement of one's anima or animus is a crucial part of the process of individuation, a lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self, which is the main task of human development. The title of the exhibition refers to this very development, as the letters stand for the four anima levels of state development in Jungian philosophy: Eve, Helen, Mary, and Sofia. These states are embodied in Bodoni's canvases in the form of multiple figures that emerge in his enigmatic, perplexing visual world.
