73 entries were submitted for the seventh Painting Prize of STRABAG. The Jury found the submissions of a satisfactory quality, and was pleased to observe that the painters participating represented the artistic aims of the generation born in the seventies.
The main prize of 1.000.000 HUF went, by the unanimous decision of the Jury to László GYÕRFFY. His pictures represent a present day version of the traditions of realist painting, where the classical function of portraiture and the computer manipulated visual culture of contemporary art are unified. The works submitted by him attest to his mature and consistent aesthetic and technical approach.
The four artist to receive Merit Awards of 400.000 HUF were Zsuzsi CSISZÉR, András ERNSZT, Mátyás László OLÁH and Tibor Krisztián PÁLL.
A new form of conceptualism appears in the fotorealistic pictures of Zsuzsi CSISZÉR, in that the portrayed situation and the layers of meaning bring a polysemantic structure into being. Visual and textual references distance the image from any easily formulated message.
The paintings of András ERNSZT, built up from reiterated elements, do not fulfill a depictive function, but show the particular features of the formal structure of the image, its deeper layers and shifts. In spite of the formal reductionism his colourism is detailed, complex and refined.
The scenes of a marketplace portrayed by Mátyás László OLÁH amplify the banal details of everyday life. By the choice of vegetables offered for sale, and their sensuous depiction an allusion to the tradition of Dutch still life painting is made, and the gesture of alienation is not allowed to go amiss either.
Two types of figurative imagery confront one another in the painting of Tibor Krisztián PÁLL: the ready made motives that are found on industrially manufactured wall-to-wall carpeting as patterns and animal figures painted with objective adherence. His painting is noticeable for its distinctive humour and apparent ease.
