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October 24, 2002
You and your friends are cordially invited to attend the opening
of an Exhibition of Mixed Media, Found Objects, Collage and Assemblage
Works from 1990 to Present
by
Gabor P. Mezei
Opening Reception: Thursday October 24th, 2002,
6:00-9:00 p.m.
Exhibition continues until Sunday November 24th, 2002
The Exhibition is part of the Bathurst Annex Studio Tour.
The theme is "Blood Cells".
The tour is sponsored by the Sunnybrook Foundation.
Business Hours: Saturday and Sunday 2-6 p.m., during the week by
appointment or by chance.
Untitled |
Totemic Images |
The Gift (Attila Zalanyi)
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Help Yourself
Artist Statement with reference to the theme "Blood Cells"
My first response was to find out more about blood cells since
my knowledge was minimal. The next step was to form an idea of what
I could do that would be consistent with my present interest as
far as materials and mediums used. I wanted to do something that
was personal and the fact that a very good friend of mine Attila
Zalanyi has recently needed blood transfusions put me on a trail
(no pun intended). I have drawn a portrait of Attila in 2000, before
his illness started. I thought I could use the portrait as the starting
point of the work entitled "The Gift" My inquiries into
the workings of blood cells taught me that red blood cells are formed
by the bone-marrow,having acquired a piece of bone to use somehow
in an assemblage with the portrait, the shape and size of the bone
was suggestive of a vase. So the leaves(made of canvas and painted
red) became a decorative element together with the leaf in which
the veins are especially metaphorical in this context. The small
round balls that that represent blood cells are the wrong shape
when one considers the real shape of red blood cells, which are
concave on one side and convex on the other side.I have used horse
chestnuts in my conceptual art pieces previously so when I looked
at them during my search for better natural shapes, I was amazed
how they fulfill the need for a concave/convex object.So the other
pieces in the show use the the horse chestnuts as the symbol for
red blood cells and the husk incredibly conforms to the white bloodcell
shape that I've seen in illustrations. In the sculptural piece "Help
yourself" the bluish green ground glass pieces represent the
platelets, and the dish is a piece of bamboo, acting as the vessel
or vein. The untitled piece is an abstract assemblage of items I
made during the creation of the "Gift" (the portrait of
A.Z.) and some medical connection items that were used on me in
an emergency situation.That situation is covered by the piece titled
"Smoke half a joint and dial 911" The last piece I've
made for the theme is titled "'Totemic Images" it was
a gradual process of handling the red painted horse chestnuts and
the white painted husks and trying to find another holding vessel
for them, once the plastic sleeves for fluorescent lights were discovered
to be the right diameter, the addition of the Chinese Noh Theatre
Masks was the happy accident that almost all art work requires to
rise above the logical process.
Gabor P. Mezei
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