Absturz | Falling
A distinguishing feature of Nóra Soós’s oeuvre from the past twenty years is that she uses series of images to explore various different themes. Her early picture series drew on objects from her immediate environment (I-nterior), then she gradually broadened the scope of her attention to include the world around her. She found inspiration in art history, literature, philosophy, economics, biology and the technical sciences for her latest series of pictures entitled Absturz (Falling). These paintings feature, as their central motif, frozen moments of falling and the diverse states of “being” in the air. These include figures in freefall, soaring paper planes, surveillant drones, flittering butterflies, floating airships, descending parachutists and many other unusual flying structures. Her pictures blend together not only the past and present, but also figures and objects from diverse cultural milieus, depicted with bold contours and shown at differing scales and from differing perspectives. These transparent picture layers and the bold, vibrant colours have become Nóra Soós’s hallmark over the years, to which she has recently added a new technical twist: Certain details are drawn with charcoal, drawing the viewer’s attention with their sombre tonality and full-bodied forms. This is how current problems, such as climate change, homelessness or our pandemic-stricken world are brought into the foreground; along with those (seemingly) endlessly plummeting figures whose fears are also our fears.
Curator: Dóra Dekovics
Nóra Soós graduated in 2004 with a degree in painting and visual arts teaching from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, where her tutors were Sándor Molnár, Károly Klimó and Dóra Maurer. During her time at university, she experimented with various different genres (object, assemblage, environment), and finally settled on primary panel painting. In the year of her graduation and in her early career she received numerous major accolades: a Glatz Oszkár Award and Herman Lipót Award in 2004, a STRABAG Painting Award in 2005 and a Junior Prima Award in 2008. Her first major solo exhibition after graduating took place in 2005 in the Szombathely Gallery, followed by a 2006 show in the acb Gallery in Budapest. Since then, she has continuously exhibited both in Hungary and abroad, and she also participates in art fairs. Most recently, her pictures were displayed in the Faur Zsófi Gallery in an exhibition entitled Transparent Memory: Continuous Present in 2015, and this year one of her paintings featured in Kunsthalle Budapest’s Artonomy | 2nd National Salon of Fine Arts group exhibition. Her works can be found in numerous public and private collections (Commerzbank Contemporary Collection, Antal-Lusztig Collection, Bank Austria Kunstforum, STRABAG Collection, Szombathely Gallery). She currently lives and works in Budapest.
Simultaneously – Studio Visits
Zoltán Bánföldi | Zsófia Bérczi | Győző Byhon | Gábor Fülöp | Réka Gergely | Tibor Pataki | Péter Rizmayer | Nóra Soós | László Tenk
MŰCSARNOK Kunsthalle Budapest | 28 October 2020 – 10 January 2021
http://mucsarnok.hu/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?mid=N1EB4zaRWOFl8KrOxHvOTY
virtual opening: https://www.facebook.com/events/788612371708763