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Young Hungarian painter Ákos Ezer exemplifies contemporary figural painting. His previous period of work incorporated what could be dubbed a “downfall”, representations of male figures turned upside down on the outskirts of cities – depictions of garden parties, camping, spending time in cottages, or totally lost in the forest. In his current series of works, he creates a grotesque breakdance of strange deformed figures. A cabaret of bodies with the same faces, layered on top of one another and fragmented within a single hybrid shape. It is a cheerful and somewhat unflattering image of a present-day man in a world that he creates and deforms at one and the same time.
While fellow contempories offer minimal gestures and spiritual emptiness, Ákos Ezer, on the other hand, prefers inflation, compression of matter, mass, and a kaleidoscope of colors. Although Ezer creates large-scale paintings, space remains in short supply. The figures are pressed, compressed into complex constructions – the depicted men would most likely prefer not to end up in such bizarre, ludicrous and uncomfortable situations. In other words, there is a strong dose of irony, humor, and absurdity. Another stand-out feature is Ezer’s strident colorfulness which merely underlines the composition’s absurdity and exaggerated forms – as if he would like to confirm the slogan bandied about by American gallerists and collectors that a successful painting must be “funny, colorful and sexy”. Vlad Beskid