The painting entitled Outlandish was made for the artist’s first solo exhibition (1995, Studio Gallery), the theme of which was defined by the motif “woman with a lion”. The painting depicts a dream-like scene: in a savannah landscape, a female figure dressed in ancient Greek clothes (who strongly resembles the artist) feeds a lioness with raw meat. The scene is at once realistic and unrealistic, where a razor-thin line separates the harmony of peaceful coexistence from potential tragedy. In addition to the obvious biblical antecedents (1 Kings, Judgement of Solomon) – both figures are placed in a circle drawn around the two of them – the composition of the work is informed by cinematic and pop-cultural precedents. The situation is a direct quotation from Joy Adamson’s Born Free (Elsa and Her Cubs), without the chalk circle, of course. Glazing also reinforces the dream-like, memory quality of the scene, presenting the lion and the female character in even more unrealistic situations in the other paintings in the series. In the pieces of the series, different relationships and relations of power are narrated by the duo of woman and lion: images of embracing, loving, caring togetherness mixed with those of fear, passion, submission and equality. Possible and established female narratives and patterns of behaviour, desires, sometimes depicted in a romantic, sentimental, melancholic mood, or in liberating, often absurd, unimaginable situations. Through the mediation of desire-fulfilling fantasies, Szépfalvi uses representations of female positions to draw attention to patterns of stereotypical gender roles and social relations.
József Készman