What was the artist thinking?

Who wouldn’t find the question – most often heard in literature classes – „What was the artist thinking?” familiar. We often pose this question in relation to individuals who are no longer among the living. We analyze their works based on their lives or history, and draw conclusions.

However, artists are alive and living among us, and they themselves can tell us what they were thinking. I seized the opportunity and asked three young painters if they had ever created works about the future, and what was on their minds while painting – I was curious what came to their minds when they think of the day after tomorrow.

Marosi Panni

Title: The Stillness Before

Size: 140 x 130 cm       

Technique: oil,canvas  

2025

„The Stillness Before evokes a state characterized by the ominous, inexplicable silence before great changes. The painting processes a personal story, but it also has a more universal interpretation. This feeling can also be observed in natural phenomena; and its most basic example is the oppressive silence before a storm, the feeling of dense air. A feeling that is certainly familiar to all of us and one we often refer to as a ‚doomsday mood.’ Something one can only wait for, helplessly. It carries within it the feeling of fear of the unknown, while also being characterized by a sort of soft resignation, and this duality creates tension. The tension of waiting, about which we cannot know how long it will last, or when something will bear down upon us. At such times, it’s as if time ceases, and we lose our points of orientation.

In my painting, two woven chairs, familiar from my childhood, emerge from a pool filled with a liquid of unidentifiable origin, clutching each other convulsively. In the sky, the moment of a lunar eclipse is occurring, while from a distance, the unknown approaches in the form of black clouds. The wind has grabbed dark locks of hair, which have caught on the branches of a Dalmatian pine tree. Pink sheep’s wool is peeling from the ceiling. Only two swans remain undisturbed, bathing in the form of pink braids.”

Nagy Marcell

Title: Önkívületi Boldogság (Ecstatic Happiness)

Size: 180x150 cm

Technique: Acrylic, canvas,

2025

Does such a thing as the future even exist? Or is there only this swirling present, slipping through our fingers like the paint stains on the canvas? Look at this canvas: faces emerge and disappear, as if the border between reality and imagination momentarily dissolves. The figures are grotesque, yet human. Sometimes they smile, sometimes they just look at us with an inscrutable gaze. But what do they see? Us? Themselves? Or the future, which we dare not yet imagine?

This painting does not sharply distinguish between utopia and dystopia. Rather, it presents both simultaneously. Could this be a more beautiful world, where all differences resolve into harmony? Or quite the opposite: is this chaos already the antechamber of disintegration? Is the multicolor coexistence or fragmentation?

The future is always haunting, because it does not exist. Only the present exists, this dense, pulsating now in which we currently are. Every decision we make is another layer on the painting. And what if we are already living in a dystopia, and we’ve just grown accustomed to it? Or what if utopia is nothing more than the very possibility of asking questions?

The painting does not provide answers. Rather, it holds up a mirror: look closely, what do you see in it? What emerges from within you when you look at it? Ecstasy? Happiness? Fear? Hope? Confusion? The correct answer is undoubtedly: presence.

The future depends on us, yet we feel as if everything had already been decided long ago. Or perhaps tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? Or perhaps right now, in this very moment?”

Szabó Kristóf – KristofLab

Title: Human as error VI.

Size: 190x150 cm

Technique: Acrylic, canvas

2024

„Humanity has been present on Earth for approximately only 300,000 years, while life originated approximately 3.5 million years ago. Our species began drastically transforming our planet around the time of the Industrial Revolution, and a significant percentage of these processes can be attributed to the last 70 years.

We can think of ourselves as an error in terms of natural diversity. If we look at the past century, it is not an exaggeration to speak of a two-thirds decrease in plant and animal species. In Earth’s history, there have been five major mass extinctions so far, which reached the 75% mark. In the past 100 years, according to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, roughly 27% of currently known species have become threatened, including 25% of mammals, 13% of birds, 41% of amphibians, and 33% of plants. The village chosen as the theme of the painting is Szentkirályszabadja – a settlement near Veszprém that once functioned as a Russian military base and gradually became depopulated after the fall of the communist regime. This type of depopulation is not the result of a conscious or planned process, but rather the combined play of chance and the consequences of human activities. The former human structures have since been reclaimed by nature, subjugating the abandoned built environment. Merely a few decades are needed for the ecosystem to regenerate and for biodiversity to be restored. The painting examines how humans disappear from nature. In my work, the concept of ‚error’ and its aesthetics are key: the painting process gives a great role to chance, to the glitched surfaces created by abstracted brushwork. The work aims to shed light on a possible future where humanity could even go extinct due to its own activities. Nature reconquers what humans had taken, so the areas appropriated by humans once again approach their natural state. This process highlights the power of nature over civilization, raising the question: Can humans disappear from the landscape without a trace? Can their presence be considered an error that nature strives to correct?”