born in Kecskemét, Hungary

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Gábor Király trained in drawing, visual communications, and as an art teacher before embarking on a full-time career as an artist. Since then, he has exhibited widely across Hungary, in addition to Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the United States. He lives and works in Budapest and Kecskemét.

Central to Gábor’s practice is an experimental approach to painting that rarely involves conscious planning. Often abandoning then reworking images over long periods, his portrayal of human frailty and fallibility in raw, gestural brushstrokes echoes post-war neo-expressionist motifs. Gábor’s subjects are at once anonymous — he claims they are fictitious interpretations of real people — and seemingly alert to their individuality. Some are almost intimidating full-face, or half-length compositions cropped tightly to the extremities of the frame; others, in three-quarter view, suggest the intimacy or vulnerability of a self-portrait. Despite the idiosyncrasies and awkward poses, there is compassion too — he describes the works as subconscious impressions of social encounters.

In 2007 Gábor lived in Indianapolis in the midwestern US, where he was inspired by the art and culture of the city’s African American community. America’s folk and outsider art traditions, too, can be seen in his compositional style, depiction of animals, and unconventional use of found materials — the latter an important element in his oeuvre. Preferring the unpredictable surface of hessian or raw wooden panels to traditional canvas, Gábor sources materials from the street, local markets, and house clearances. On one occasion, he used the elaborately chiselled headboard of an antique bed; elsewhere, he has employed sheets of wine filtering paper and railway sleepers, and his anthropomorphic wooden structures blur the boundary between painting and sculpture.

By incorporating these irregularly-shaped, organic textures, Gábor amplifies the tactile quality of his paintings, an idea he explores further in his signature process of applying thick impasto to a surface then blasting it off with a high-pressure water gun before adding more layers. The result is evident in his canvases, each of which harbors multiple layers concealed beneath the surface.

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