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Botond Keresztesi at Future Gallery

September 13, 2018

Artist: Botond Keresztesi

Exhibition title: Botond Keresztesi: D.D.R. (Digital Dreams Recordings)

Venue: Future Gallery, Berlin, Germany

Date: August 8 – September 4, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Future Gallery, Berlin

Future Gallery is proud to present “D.D.R – Digital Dreams Recordings” by Botond Keresztesi.
This is the first solo show by the Romanian painter at the gallery.

Keresztesi’s paintings create enchanting alternative realities by drawing the viewer into unknown, yet strangely familiar, microcosms. The works collide 2D and 3D as a reflection of visuals absorbed in everyday life and brought together in a surreal landscape. Dreamlike and sometimes eerie, they connect digital images, Internet surfaces, cybernated realties, infomercials, pop and avant-garde culture in a stream of consciousness floating across the canvas.

The sujets can be traced back to European Avant-Garde movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Surrealism. Keresztesi is combining these different artistic approaches with topics such as dreams, ecstasy, sin, death, passion or hallucinations. These surreal compositions are created by combining different techniques such as airbrush and masking in combination with traditional brush work. Although the paintings have a strong emphasis on the figurative, they cannot be categorized as photo-realistic.

Keresztesi uses found material such as warehouse rave party fliers from the early 90’s mixed with images taken by the artist himself. These photo fragments are visually equivalent to collections of images: dreaming, a shadow of moments from our everyday life. Dreams are built from the images of our daily perceptions, assembled from our visual data bank. Virtual space and the physical space of dreams are very similar. Taking these pictorial quotes from the dreamscape, virtual worlds, art history and alternative culture, Keresztesi transgresses contexts and manages to construct humorous interactions between these visual worlds.

In “D.D.R. – Digital Dreams Recordings” Keresztesi creates realms of possibilities in parallel universes which co-exist next to ours and allows us to reflect on our viewing habits and approaches to the world.

Botond Keresztesi (*1987, Marosvásárhely, RO) lives and works in Budapest.

Recent and past exhibitions include: L.S.D. – Lex Selfie Drama, Artkartell Project Space, Budapest; C.N.N. – Crystal Nails Narratives, Labor Gallery, Budapest; The Rest / In Peace, 115-106, Budapest; Reflection in a glass scorpio, Galeria A.M.180, Prague; And if I left off dreaming about you?, Foothold, Polignano a Mare