Zsolt Bodoni

His paintings are often large scale and tend towards the monumental. However, although Bodoni forays into the territory of theatrical, history paintings, he draws his subject matter from what he calls: 'This melting pot of trash which forged Eastern and Western Europe's history and culture.' Paraphrasing Baudrillard, Bodoni mediates this notion through his painting. He examines history and culture through the process of researching documents. Using the analogy of traditional painting techniques to describe his method as: an attempt to peer beneath the glaze of the ‘original’ work, searching for the “skeleton” that lies beneath, Bodoni operates like a hacker, finding a way in so as to corrupt the 'original' file that we have come to understand as 'the true interpretation of events', and thus changing our reading of the past and redefining our understanding of past and present realities. Bodoni succeeds in creating an alternate reality through his dynamic compositions that reflects his interest in both Expressionism and Fauvism, but with an acknowledgement of the role of the grotesque. His grounds are peopled with what he describes as 'educated' crowds of shadows; a physical manifestation of his desire to try and visualise the incomprehensible, the felt as well as the seen.