ARTIST STATEMENT

I was born in 1981 in Romania, more precisely in the Transylvanian region. I have been living and working here ever since in a rural environment close to nature in a living village, where most people still use horse driven carts, and in the evenings the cow herd occupies the streets on their way home from the fields, home where their owners are awaiting to milk them by hand. The villagers still use wood for cooking and heating their homes in the winter, wood that they usually exploit themselves from the nearby woods. In this place people still have a close connection to nature. It is also true that today many of the agricultural labor is mechanized even here, but people still work together and help each other to harvest the crops and plants they grew. Every family has poultry and various domestic animals, they grow their vegetables in the garden and a few even bake their own bread. Unfortunately, the urban lifestyle and the more accessible technologies have influenced the traditional life of villagers, although not so long ago in my childhood my grandparents did not buy food from the shops, they only ate what they grew or gathered from the woods and fields, and the only technology they used was the electricity powering the light bulbs in their home, and still they had a beautiful high-quality life, eating healthy food, drinking herbal teas, praying, telling us bedtime stories, working the land with common effort. Most of my beautiful childhood memories are connected to my grandparents. We always went together to work the land with joyful hearts albeit we had to walk for kilometers, and did hard physical labor. We cherished the fresh spring-water that we had to drink all day from our bottles, we celebrated the mid day church bell’s sound because we knew it signaled lunchtime. We enjoyed our food, and we ate all that was served, though we did not have today's diversified variety of gourmet menus on the table. Somewhere deep inside my soul I always longed for this kind of life. Slowly but surely I feel I am getting there. I can say that now the labors characteristic to traditional rural lifestyle - such as: cutting wood, making fire, reaping and haymaking, feeding the animals working the garden - are part of my everyday routine. I'm not doing this out of coercion; I'm doing it because I chose to do it. I had a choice to move out from the city, to quit my day job and to live in a cozy rural environment leading a modest but free life, doing the things I like. I believe that this kind of lifestyle brings me inner peace and spiritual balance, which could stand as an example before my children and to young people in general. Of course this is not an easy ride. I am trying to evolve spiritually every day, knowing that maybe I will get there someday, and if not, then I'll leave it to future generations to complete the journey but until then I'm trying to enjoy the ride.

As a teacher, nature plays an important role in my sculptural work. I find it important to repeat again and again the simple, forever valid messages of wisdom, I learned from nature, because I believe that people in general have a tendency to change the nature minded truth based on intuition, for a more rational, over-elaborate set of values that slowly shifts the human condition into the realm of virtual realities. A lot of things and questions were clarified in my mind just by closely observing the natural world, its flora and fauna, and it became quite obvious that modern men tend to ignore instinct and intuition, and get trapped in and addicted to the abundance of artificial and often misleading information flow, surrounded by a materialistic, consumption driven society. Living a sedentary and comfort centered life, humanity is drifting towards self-annihilation. I'm not against technology, on the contrary, I think that technology and technical advances are a wonderful thing, but without the knowledge and wisdom we can easily become its slaves, if we don't use technology to extend our knowledge and to have a better life but instead we use it for more comfort and meaningless, cheap entertainment. Sometimes this can even get to a point where we actually feel we are less of a man if we don't posses state of the art gadgets, and we work some more to earn more money to buy more stuff that is going to be obsolete soon enough to make space for a newer, trendier gadget, that again once we'll get it will fail to make us happy. In my opinion one can only find their path to real growth through solitude and meditation, or time spent with our own thoughts, because only this can nourish and soothe the soul. Nature is mankind's real home, where we don't need to change decoration because we get bored with the old one, or because the trends have changed, nature provides us both spiritual and physical nourishment, and we should always keep that in mind, this is something, technology will never be able to do, only nature and Mother Earth are capable of that. Life today without plastic is unimaginable and thanks to it, people became unsparing and wasteful, they don't value their possessions as much. Traditional craftsmanship and craftsmen – coopers, glassmakers, weavers, tinners, tanners etc. - are on the brink of extinction although they produced and produce objects and goods that last a lifetime. Modern man is surrounded by worthless, disposable things and handles them and everything else, sometimes even other people, accordingly.

I try to mature my works for several years, so in the moment of creation I can operate with clear-out forms and eloquence which will be perceptible and comprehensible for anybody. I'd like to quote here the great Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncusi, who said:

- “Simplicity is complexity resolved.”-

Reaching simplicity is not the result of everyday work in my case, but mostly the result of solitude, constant self-reflection and meditation, happening in the settings of nature and its sacred places, where my creative thoughts are able to unravel. For me the physical labor inherent to my lifestyle, amongst animals and vegetation, the natural environment, provides me that feeling of complacence and security that helps me get to a state of mind in which, through clear thoughts and thinking I can get to a truth or wisdom that materializes in my works.

I use mostly wood because its warmth and organic nature fits smoothly into my artistic vision. I can express myself best in my sculptures using symmetry and modular composition. Repetition, natural cycles have always been interesting me, because continuity and the perpetuation of traditional ways for me are the best option. Always chasing the new can easily lead us to dead ends, because most of them are not about advance, they are rather self indulgence and satiation of selfish desires.

Instead of that I believe that the right path is to hand down the knowledge and wisdom to future generations. For me is also very important to forge solidary communities, long lasting human and professional relationships, to revive the old tradition of voluntary co-operative work's spirit, through which communities resolved the bigger challenges - like building a house, working the land, organizing a wedding, baptizing or funeral - together, helping each other out wherever and whenever they could.

We need to rely on other people's help, and help them in return when they need it, just as we rely on God's help when we are having difficult times. We need to exchange thoughts, to share our experiences with other people and fellow artists. This is going to reflect in our art too if we do so. I'd also like to emphasize the importance of family which is a recurrent motif in my work just like the idea of community, of birth and death, the cycle of life.

Sacral art is more important today than any other time, because it is the key to preserve our identity and in the same time it is the means in our universal striving for good and beauty.

In our cognitive quest regarding reality empiric knowledge is not enough by itself. The people of the twenty first century focus mostly on palpable things, it is by excellence brain centered, and the spiritual aspects of human existence are neglected. Our everyday duties devour our time, technology hijacks our attention, and instead of making our life easier as it supposed to it enslaves us, we no longer have time and patience for ourselves our loved ones, our spare time consist merely of sleeping, because we are over-solicited, and all this because of things we really don't need in order to survive and to live a fulfilled and happy life. Áron Márton a famous roman-catholic bishop of Transylvania and a very charismatic spiritual leader once said:

- “Man can accommodate his earthly life freely, but consistently with the fact that he is God's creation, his prosperity is conditioned by the fulfillment of God's will.” -

On one hand, if you want to know what is God's purpose with you, you can never find the answer looking outside of you, but instead you'll have to look inside.

On the another hand for the accommodation part keeping tradition alive is not a step back as many would think, but more the sign of a responsible attitude, through which we are not only building our life on solid foundations but we are also preparing the ground for future generations. I think a lot about of our folkloric heritage or ancestor’s life style and mentality, and I try to take inspiration and draw strength, and driven by those ideals I attempt to continue and enlarge this heritage. According to Hungarian writer and philosopher Béla Hamvas: “Religion, philosophy, science, they all mean to ease life's burdens or so they say, tradition gives backto the man it's self.”I truly admire the old folk architecture, for its organic approach. It only used local natural materials, such as: stone, wood, clay. These houses were built in human proportions and based only on their basic needs, following the logic of the most efficient is the most economical. These are small in size, in order to use less wood for construction, less wood for heating, less impact on their environment. They didn't need big houses anyway, because most of the time they stayed outside working in the garden or in the fields, they only entered the house for sleep. In our region the traditional house only has two rooms. In one of those rooms they lived, the other room was the so called clean room, which they did not heat during the winter. They kept all their valuable things in that room, the painted furniture, textiles, carpets etc. and this was the place where they accommodated their guest who stayed for the night. The other room where they lived was heated by the fireplace on which they cooked the food for the family that sometimes consisted of the two parents and up to six to nine children. All the objects that surrounded themselves with were prime necessity objects that they mostly made themselves during wintertime. Women were spinning wool threads and weaving, embroidering, men were carving and handcrafting mostly from wood everything from furniture cradle to the last saltcellar, doing all this while singing together and telling stories to each other in a joyful atmosphere.

The decorative motifs that they used on these tools and objects were all inspired by and taken from the surrounding natural world. The most frequent of those are the: Sun, Moon, tulip, bird, heart. These buildings and objects were thus warm, friendly and aesthetic and the knowledge and techniques were passed on from father to son, from mother to daughter. In the possession of this knowledge I try to live my life in order to perpetuate this tradition, cause in order for tradition to live on, one has to live it.

These are the basic idea-chains that drive my work and continue to inspire me to aspire towards creating an organic form of art that highlights life`s basic instinctive nature-minded existential realities. For me the ideas and sketches of sculptures are mere codes that are awaiting to be deciphered, but with numerous possible valid meanings hidden in them, leaving it to the viewers to reflect and meditate and come to a personal non-objective conclusion that is validated through their personal subjective lense`s perspective. The heart motif is a reoccurring form in my works, although it’s not something intentional. I say this because I believe that the ideas are more like gifts I receive or duties that were given to me to complete. This is why I research every aspect of these ideas responsibly and with great respect towards them trying to choose the right materials and approaches while turning them into artworks in order to make the message, the information coded in them get through to the audience. The heart shape as a symbol has no connection whatsoever with the kitschy cliché heart symbol used in today’s different product marketing campaigns nor do I feel that it is even slightly connected to the ironic use of this symbol in Pop Art’s visual language that - as we all know - was filled with heavy social criticism. The symbolic of the heart shape and form in my visual coding process is more related to the medieval approach, or more precisely medieval iconographic use of this symbol in which its roots trace back to the organic-vegetal representations, namely in this particular forms case the fig. Another source iconography could spring from the early Hungarian folk decorative patterns - for example the tulip or other seed-like vegetal motifs - in which the fallen seeds splitting and metamorphose into a new life or beginning is ritually reenacted through the graphic representations.

The heart motif first apeared in my works with the occasion of a group exhibition entitled “Palpable”. This was an exhibition for blind people, in which my approach was that they somehow need to meet with forms and shapes that they could easily recognize. These sculptures were centered and built on and around the notions of family, love, and togetherness. I focused mostly on the tactile properties of the carved surfaces, that could transmit that warm feeling of beauty to the “viewers”.

In the opening speech my friend and art historian Zoltán Vécsi Nagy talked in the following way about my works:

-„Péter Madaras in his all-time sculptures uses the over-simple and at the same time the most universal forms and symbols. He holds onto them even if these are the most used up ones. The essence of his art, I can even say, its heroism, lies exactly therein, that he fills these forms and signs which most of the times are sacrificed on the altars of dastardly goals, and are usually advertised for mass-produced articles, with new content and spirituality, furthermore with minimal tool usage: like the composition that can respect the ancient meaning of signs and archetypes too, and can adjust to the given cultural context, the well chosen sizes and proportions, as well as the simple but sensitive altering of the surface. The sculptures here exhibited constructed of stylized heart shape, are able to give something elementary human to the seer and the non-seer alike. His sculptures in my subjective reading are the proclaimers of the infant-parent sensuality and the love fulfilled in lusciousness.”-

With my sculpture „The point” that I realized at Lazarea's (in hungarian Gyergyószárhegy)” KORKÉP” International Visual-Art-Symposium, wich is a larger piece made from pine wood, I tried to reflect on the topic of growth and evolution, on how we can get from one to two, from two to four and so on, pointing out the different phases of the transformation of the individual in his journey to become society's micro-cell or basic building block, the family. The Canadian author and art historian John K. Grande described it like this:

-„Madaras Péter’s sculpture is monumental in its simplicity. The forms, in this case a heart. The heart motif is repeated in two vertical sections from pine tree wood are like folk Pop sculpture. The heart is a recurring motif seen in Transylvanian architecture, furniture painting. Madaras references his culture, symbolizing community and place, but gives it all a contemporary symbolic that reflects the here and now.”

 My first solo exhibition took place in the Bucharest based spaces of Atelier 030202's gallery. For this occasion I created five larger scale works out of pine wood, which featured yet again the heart symbol and shape making reference to the inner self of the human being, the constant evolution of the soul from the moment of birth towards its journey back to eternity, the metamorphose of matter into spirit, the ascension of the soul from the physical world to the realm of the spiritual existence. The choice of material is no mere coincidence. It also has a deeper meaning. The upward pointing arrow shape of the pine tree is counteracting with the heart motif's down pointing triangular shape, just like soul and body struggle inside with each other in their divergent aspirations towards earth and heaven. For the exhibition catalogue Dan Mircea Cipariu an author from Bucharest wrote in this manner: - “The finding of an identitary sound, is in the personal exhibition signed by the artist Péter Madaras, an occasion for visual research on the self and the forms through which the inner cosmos incarnates through the materiality of a pine tree. The transforming of textures and materials into a speech about spiritual and energetic rhythms, finds in the initiatic symbol of the Heart a different kind of alchemic catalyst. The Heart becomes a pretext of an artistic format through which organic and matter is searching for the spirit. A heart found under the symbolic power of the number five, a number that is suggesting us the subtle resonance between even and odd, between feminine and masculine, between senses and thought, between heavenly and earthly. All this in a formula, that isn't dichotomist at all, a representation of the cosmic principle of merger. The appeal to the visual poetry of the Heart is organic and authentic, it’s a space for breathing and wandering on the inside. The figurativeness and symmetry of some abstract contours complete the inner life, a life that is a wave and particle in the same time. The telluric transforms itself out of the need of exiting the contingent in order to ascend Above. The choice for the pine wood is necessary for the accumulation of plastic and existential tension, given by the identitary struggle between heaven and earth. The ideal can find itself an inner geography in and by the physical, mental and spiritual form of the Heart. The sculptures of Péter Madaras are well established islands of spiritual well being!” - Besides of the heart motif there is another form that is constantly reappearing in my sculpture and that is the sphere. In my works and visual language this is never a perfect shape, mostly because it is always done by hand and with hand tools, sometimes I even keep the texture left by the chisel signaling by his gesture that perfection is just an illusion, perfection is an attribute of God. Man can only get to perfection through errors and fails, he gets it better every time if he just tries and tries and never gives up, while learns to accept his flaws. In the same time this imperfect sphere makes a reference to other natural shapes and forms such as pebbles, fruits, seeds, cosmic bodies and Earth, in one word all the Creation. My latest work, a sculptural installation consists of 36 carved spherical heart shapes, which are arranged on a four meter diameter circular plane. Through this work I'm trying to get my thoughts around the topic of micro-, and macro-cosmos. The spherical modules are realized from nine different type of wood and they all have different sizes referring this way to the colorfulness and vicissitudinousness of the universe and to the particularities of individual human souls within it. Through their dichotomous symbolic, these elements create a sacral space for meditation on nearness and remoteness. I'm trying to refer to the natural world's infiniteness through cosmos by making an allusion to the stars and planets far away outside ourselves, but in the same time they can be seen as reference to the heart and soul or the inner infiniteness as well. In the same time the work itself tries to formulate some essential questions about the evanescence of our physical existence and life after death, without answering to them, thus leaving the questions open, in order for the viewers to ponder upon them. The basic idea of this work resurfaced from a childhood story told by my grandparents, in which the stars on the night sky embodied the departed souls of people, who this way could keep on living for forever, shining their lights through the infinite of the universe. Besides of the starting idea I wanted to leave the interpretation of the work to be open, that s why I gave it the title “ … “. Graphic artist and author András Dimény in his opening speech gave the following appreciation of this work: - „The round wooden form that supports these seed-like shapes is in the right place and time. A sacred space in which the round seed-like shapes seem to be awaiting germination”. - I believe that in the future, after the modular, symmetrical compositions, I will trend towards the organic sculpture; I am trying to experience, to live such things through which the strength and inspiration needed for my work initiated shall continue to find me. I am slowly trying to go back to the hand tools, to natural, local materials, so that I can perform an independent creative work by this as well, technique causes dependence, at the same time we become naked; at the first longer power-break it turns out, that in no more than 50 years we forgot almost everything of the knowledge of our grandparents, what in a world without technology is needed for survival. The multi-generational crafts die out, because there is no one to continue, or we think that we don’t need them anymore. I think, it’s important to return to nature, to seek out the knowledge of our grandparents as long as we can, and thus perhaps we can live in greater security and peace; the place of nature’s wonders and hand tools is not solely in the museum. I make it my business that striving towards a self-sufficient life-form to learn things that are needed for this kind of lifestyle. As an artist I am awaiting further tasks, ideas, inspiration, hoping that I can be a proper executor of them. In conclusion I would quote Béla Hamvas again: -“Try being honest without psychology. Love without “ME”, see God without religion. Just as it really is. Somehow by heart and with joy.”-

BIOGRAPHY

   I graduated from Plugor Sándor Art High School in 1999, i took my final examination in 2004 at the University of Art in Oradea, Romania, at the sculpture department in the class of artist Rudolf Bone.