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Zsolt Bodoni
(b. 1975)
bodonizsolt.jpg

born in Aleșd, Romania

lives and works in Oradea (Romania) and Budakeszi (Hungary)

Zsolt Bodoni (born 1975, Alesd, Romania) is a Hungarian painter who lives and works in Oradea, Romania. The special history of Transylvania, its religious and cultural diversity, the mingling of Hungarian, Transylvanian Saxon, Jewish, and Romanian cultures as well as the Eastern European lethargy and vulnerability of the place are among his defining experiences and this duality is what he is eager to grasp in his work. His art observes and reflects upon this historical scenario with skepticism or irony. He delves into archives, peeling back layers, challenging the accepted interpretations, thus redefining our understanding of the origin of subjects related to history, religion or art. His mode of expression is expressive figurative painting. His large-scale canvases are at the intersection of his personal history, weird, desolate locations, inhabited by people whose presence is not always clearly decipherable; we do not see ordinary stories but a twisted, displaced abstraction of their meaning. Beside the ocasionally deep realism of the world depicted, puzzling abstract details figure on his canvas. It is not a structured world but a special symbiosis of painting and reality. Plot does not carry a narrative function. Figurative elements are torn out of their original context. The forms depicted amidst peeling layers are puzzling and enigmatic but their forelife reveals itself indirectly, uncertainly, unpredictively. Bodies estranged of their environment and of themselves step out of the determinedness of time and place—the Eastern-European past. 

Bodoni`s work has been featured and reviewed in Art in America, FlashArt and New York Times. In 2009 he was selected as one of the “Top 100 Emerging Artists” of FlashArt International.

EDUCATION​

1995-2000 Hungarian University of Fine Arts

NOTABLE COLLECTIONS

Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE

Susan and Michael Hort, New York, NY 

The Mallin Collection, New York, NY

The Blake Byrne Collection, Los Angeles, CA

Zoe and Joel Dictrow Collection, New York, NY

The Craig Robins Collection, Miami, FL

Whitespace: The Mordes Collection, West Palm Beach, FL

Jimenez-Colon Collection, Ponce, PR

Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN

​SOLO EXHIBITIONS​

2021     Hybrids, David Kovats Gallery, London, UK

2019     Duo Exhibition with Márton Nemes, BuBu, Buffalo, New York

2019     E.H.M.S, Art + Text Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

2016     Forest, Art + Text Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

2014     The Shining Path, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2013     King Give Us Soldiers, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2011     Remastered, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy

             Gods and Mortals, Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2010     Fehérlófia, Son of the White Mare, Ana Cristea Gallery,
             New York, NY

2009     The Foundries of Ideology, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, NY

             Yesterday’s Heroes, Tomorrow’s Fools, Mihai Nicodim Gallery,

             Los Angeles, CA

2008     Monuments, FA Projects, London, UK Art Factory Gallery,

             Budapest, Hungary

2006     Hungarian Cultural Institute, Bruxelles, Belgium

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS​

2023     Summer Wine - Einspach Fine Art & Photography, Budapest

2021     Travel Guide - IOMO Gallery, Bucharest, Romania

2021     INSTINCT - The First Transylvanian Review, Transylvanian Art                      Center, Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy, Romania

2019     Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art, Rosenfeld                           Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery, London, UK

2017     Disruptive Imagination, Art Mill, Szentendre, Hungary

2016     Disruptive Imagination, Gallery of Fine Arts, Ostrava,

             Czech Republic

2015     THE NUDE in the XX & XXI CENTURY, S|2 Gallery, 

              London, UK

2014     Turning Points, The Twentieth Century Through 1914, 1939,                         1989 and 2004, Hungarian National Gallery, Buda Palace, 

             Budapest, Hungary

             Defaced, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO

             This Side of Paradise, S|2 Gallery, London, UK

2013     Nightfall, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic

             Budapest Tales, Scheublein Fine Art, Zurich, Switzerland

2012     Nightfall, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts,                       Debrecen, Hungary

             Referencing History, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2011     East Ex East, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy

             Prague Biennale 5, Prague, Czech Republic

             Leipzig Walkabout, Ana Cristea Gallery invited by Galerie

             Eigen + Art, Leipzig, Germany

             Art Los Angeles Contemporary (with Mihai Nicodim Gallery), 

             Los Angeles, CA

2010     Uncertain Terrain, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN

             After the Fall, HVCCA, Peekskill, NY

             Year One, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, NY

             Bad Industry, Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

             Face Your Demons, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden

             In Standard Time, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, NY

2009     Show Me a Hero, Calvert 22, London, UK

             Staging the Grey, Prague Biennale, Prague, Czech Republic

2008     15 Hungarian and Romanian Painters, Plan B, Cluj, Romania

             Portraits of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, FA Projects,

             London, UK

2007     Ernst Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary

2006     Art Colony of Élesd, Strasbourg EU Parliament, France​

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