Juhani Tuominen: TRANSIT

Throughout this year of Hungary's accession to the European Union, Dorottya Galéria, known for its constant presentation of contemporary Hungarian visual arts, has arranged a number of exhibitions of the work of international artists, as well. Within this series, Finnish artist Juhani Tuominen represents a special voice of a European and a world view. While Hungary's role as a "ferry" between East and West may be a thing of the past, for many in today's Hungary, in many respects, it is still the attraction to the West that is determinant. They see accession to the EU as the final accomplishment of this ambition for approach. For this Finnish artist, however, it is the North-South axis that is exciting; it is from this axis that he regards Europe, and across which he goes exactly to the East in search of new inspirations and renewing energies - which sometimes we, Hungarians, so readily forget, in the face of the West that we desire.
Juhani Tuominen presents his series that has taken form over the course of long years in the Ernst Museum's Dorottya Gallery. The artist was seized during his first visit to Istanbul in 1985 by the atmosphere of the ancient cemeteries and turbes (mausoleums). Since then, his painting draws upon this fundamental experience as its source. During the course of his travels to the various cities of Europe, Budapest and Pécs among them, the Turkish burial grounds to be found there have also been transformed as the roots of his artworks. His pictures, built up of smaller and larger surfaces in a geometric order and in a muted palette, hint at the mood of the turbes and the spectacle of forms dissolved in light. The colours painted over one another conjure up layers of lime; the patterns that emerge here and there evoke Turkish textiles.
2004. April 20. - May 15.

Gallery Dorottya

Tickets
2004. April 1. - April 2.
Previous exhibition

VIDEO-FORUM

2004. May 6. - May 30.
Next exhibition

Retrospective of Szilágyi Lenke