Botond Keresztesi
Images
Overview
Botond Keresztesi creates uncanny realities through his paintings by amalgamating art historical and cultural references, transporting viewers into a surreal, fantastical, and chrome-glittering utopia.
He is one of the most distinctive painters of the post-digital era in Eastern Europe, and as a member of Generation Y, pioneered an innovative and ambitious way of thinking about painting. Like his contemporaries, he has been exposed since childhood to the determinative visual world of video games and electronic devices. His artistic explorations are informed by this defining experience and are directed towards the blurred nature of the boundaries between the digital and analogue worlds as well as the continuous dialogue between these two distinct spheres of reality.
In his paintings, swirls of digital imagery come together in mechanized and hybrid ways, while certain visual cues can be traced back to European avant-garde movements such as Surrealism, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Remixing references from art history, popular culture, and both digital and everyday life, his paintings crystallize into fragmented realities of dreamscapes that can be deciphered as unique conflations of different time periods. By bringing diverse contexts, textures and materials, and introducing metaphors that defy conventions such as linear times or a unitary conception of the world, the artist opens up a more democratic space for images, exploring more possibilities of artistic creation, and embracing a multiplicity of perspectives.
Born in 1987 in Romania, Botond Keresztesi completed his studies in painting at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest in 2012. He is a three-time recipient of the Derkovits Scholarship and has previously exhibited at The Hole, NYC; Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo; Future Gallery, Berlin; Galerie Derouillon, Paris; Allouche Benias, Athens; Carl Kostyál, London; the Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest. Keresztesi currently lives and works in Budapest, Hungary.
Selected Works
Exhibitions
