Zsolt Molnár

Agro-Wave

Archive

Zsolt Molnár is a member of the youngest generation of Hungarian graphic artists. After having completed his studies at the Graphics Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2012, he moved away from traditional printmaking techniques and began studying the conceptual possibilities inherent in graphic arts imagery. He abandoned the slow chemical processes of printmaking and began constructing highly complex works of collage-architecture, which at first were layered pictorial surfaces and which with time grew into three-dimensional installations the structures of which were balanced in space. The wooden and metal structures built around picture fields and expanded into objects closely follow and almost simulate in space the actual functions of the depicted objects, tools and agricultural equipment. Associative titles, like Spraying Simulation (2017) and Multi-Row Sprayer (2017), help one decode the objects, which are hard to identify at first glance. In front of and surrounding the collages, the colours of which have been reduced and the forms and sizes of which vary, Molnár often places a white “paper coulisse” cut to shape. These “coulisses” follow the contours of the objects in the collages with minute precision. The objects depicted in this manner seem to float in the sterile space, which lacks any horizon. The collages, which consist of various picture planes and paper layers, become part of the installations and thereby enter the space. Prototypes of the forms depicted in the picture planes are mostly tools and pieces of equipment used in agriculture. Molnár studied their mechanisms and construction before transforming them into abstract geometric structures.


The exhibition entitled Agro-Wave at Kisterem is Molnár’s first solo exhibition at our gallery. The colourful objects and collages placed in the space were inspired by operation simulations of chemicals and constructions – worthy of science fiction – used in agriculture to protect plants. In Molnár’s simultaneously representational and abstract portrayals it is not just the dialectics of micro and macro qualities that is conspicuous, but also the clash between organic and inorganic qualities. The colourful metal structures which bear the paper collages thematize the pictorial question of changes in scale in a unique manner, and all the while Molnár, distancing himself from the reduced use of colour typical of his work, creates increasingly colourful and “wave-like” structures. The formations following the curved lines of chemical substances flowing from the spraying machines not only illustrate their real function, but also endeavour to prescind them from perceptible reality. One of the central motifs of the most recent works is the shield, which summarizes as an image the effect-mechanism of spraying the chemical substances and the effect of these substances on the protection and development of flora. The shield shape simultaneously refers to protection and the metamorphosis of the plant in a defensive state. The bright colour combinations of the space and the installation were inspired by the splendid colour fields of the colour diagrams of agricultural productivity and fertility scales.

Mónika Zsikla

photography by Dávid Biró and Krisztián Zana