It is a special event to be part of the first introduction of an artist.

Stepping out to the public means being judged and giving messages to the spectators. What can Antal Kerék’s paintings give to you? Sunshine in dull, grey November, liberated music of colours in the rushing city, joy of life in the tense everyday routine, calm looking around in this mad rush of modern life.

Antal Kerék’s original profession is a graphic design. In practice it means that his creative inventions and ideas hav

e to be transformed to the rational structure of the superintelligent computer.

Every shape, colour, and ratio has to be translated to the mathmatical language of the machine. The vision of attractive printed pages are born from engineering calculations.

You cannot find this engineering precision in his paintings, where the creating artist gets direct and sensual closeness with his material. In the paintings of Antal Kerék the spectator is captured by his free and liberated art, at the very first moment. Kerék as an artist enjoys the richness of the luscious colours like a child, as a sculptor he forms the material of the paints into three dimensional shapes. The overwhelming beauty of the Mediterranean landscapes, colourful flowers are held together by thoughtful structure and tight order to be a clear visual unit.

When choosing a theme, Antal Kerék is interested in everything that has the pulse of life in it. This glowing vitality makes his landscapes and still lifes so capturing. It is no coincidence that in his art the Mediterranean has played an important role with its vitality that has been the never drying source of European art for centuries. Antal Kerék is related to those artists who find all the pulsating powers and energy that hide behind the everyday life of our existence.

The postimpressionists – Van Gogh above all – thought that lands and vegetation concentrate extraordinary energy, hide gigantic vitality in their constantly changing beauty. On the other hand – just like the expressionists – for Kerék the vision of nature is simply the first step in shaping this vitality into colours. Although his paintings originate from the experiment of nature, their aim is not reflecting the true optical vision. Kerék – just like his expressionist descendants – is an individualist, who never denies that his paintings are subjective subscriptions of the vision, landscapes of soul and atmosphere, which reflect the beauty of the created world, and the feeling of the individual who is eyewitnessing this world-landscape.

This Mediterranian vitality and joy is very rare in Hungarian art. He doesn't want to be up to date, his artistic world is not connected to the expression researches of the contemporary art. From this point of view his art is an autonome creative world, a subjective lyrical confession on his experiences. His style rooted in the traditions of modern art matured to be classis, respects the shape and figure.

His landscapes enliven long lines of hills and rocky beaches. His pictures of towns and villages show ancient bendy streets of the Mediterranian to the spectator. The lights of rainbow dance on those white painted walls: all the colours of the heat, and the deep red of the sunsets. The spectators themselves are the participants of the paintings through their individual moods and impressions. His still lifes also capture the man who is exploring the colourful creatures of nature. Softly moving stalks and leaves and whirling petals become abstract experiences of colour and shape.

I think that on this dark November day I can thank you – in all of our names – for giving us the gift of true and colourful vision, and I wish Antal Kerék to keep the vitality, that is pouring from his paintings, forever.

Emese Révész
művészettörténész