Levente Herman: People

MEGNYITÓ:
VÁRFOK PROJECT ROOM
1012 Budapest, Várfok u. 14.
Thursday, 9th. June, 2022 from 18.30 to 20.30

The next exhibition in the Várfok Project Room will present Levente Herman’s latest works entitled ‘People’. The influence of the artist’s native Târgu Mures, to which he returned last year after 25 years of living in Budapest, can be clearly felt in these works of the past year.

In this exhibition, Levente Herman once again demonstrates his unrivalled painting skills. His works are very sensitive, often hovering between the transcendent and the real world. In his own painterly language, Herman explores the relationship between past and present through everyday objects: an abandoned football pitch, rusty building cordons left over from the Ceaușescu era, modern LED traffic lights, clothes hung out to dry. Impressions of human existence are presented to the viewer as snapshots, painted in a highly realistic way. In some paintings, figures appear whose identities are not completely revealed, their faces loosely rendered as a kind of enigma.

It is difficult to compartmentalise Levente Herman’s art into periods, as his thinking is characterised by a series of works. This exhibition will showcase his most recent, quite lyrical cycle, ‘News Reactions’, in which he deals with the chaotic news of the times. Often weighing on us like lead, news is depicted as piles of paper which are both contradictory and impossible to disentangle. Bright colour is used to dissolve the weight of information flooding in, giving a token ray of hope.

Levente Herman has been a permanent member of the Várfok Gallery’s Artists’ Circle since 2007 and has achieved widely accredited success. His works can be found in several Hungarian and International collections, such as the Hungarian National Gallery, the Frissiras Museum in Athens and at the 21c Museum in Kentucky [USA]. In addition, his works have been shown in solo exhibitions in several countries, including Milan, Tallinn, Bucharest, Târgu Mures and Beijing. Herman’s work is part of several large private collections throughout Europe and, as one of the founding members of the Élesd Art Colony, he has exhibited his work in various locations from Mexico to Provence over the past year.