In conformity with its eight-year tradition, the STRABAG Painting Competition has remained a high-standard forum for talented young representatives of painting in Hungary. Selecting the award winners proved to be a more difficult task for the jury this year than ever before, given the number of entries that deserved awards.
The Grand Prize, by the unanimous decision of the jury, went to Lola KOVÁCS (1970). Her large-size canvases comprising details of female faces, with unusual image cuts and sensual surface treatments, exercise a surprisingly strong effect on the viewer. Having followed her activities with great attention for years, the jury appreciated her consistent artistic approach.
The four artists to receive grant awards were Mária CHILF, Dóra JUHÁSZ, András KAPITÁNY and Sándor SZÁSZ.
Mária CHILF (1966), in her submitted works, had expanded her watercolour technique as well as enlarged the dimensions of her works on paper. Her motifs exploring the biological constitution of the human body are transformed into constituents of an enigmatic pictorial world.
Dóra JUHÁSZ (1974) had already been a candidate for an award last year. Her art is based on the tradition of analytical, non-representational painting, while combining the fundamental structure with a colourist sensibility, painterly dynamism and rich details.
The paintings by András KAPITÁNY (1964), who is also known to the public as a media artist, partly combine kinetic art with a geometric structural practice, and partly incorporate the visual world of computer art. His perspectival structures suggestive of spatiality, with their light effects uncommon in abstract art, signify a new voice in Hungarian painting.
Sándor SZÁSZ (1976), the youngest of the award winners, gave the jury the greatest surprise by his mature, elaborate landscapes of restrained colours and lyrical effects. His works, demonstrating an exquisite painterly technique and fine colourism, offer the viewer a poetic vision of nature.
Dr Lóránd Hegyi
Katalin Néray
Márta Kovalovszky
