Year: 2020
Texts: Sebestyén Sára, Baumann Günter, Borbála Jász, András Szöllősi-Nagy
Language: Magyar, Deutsch, English
104pp. | 20×20
Publisher: Nyílt Struktúrák Művészeti Egyesület (OSAS)
ISBN: 9786158118446
The Hungarian word “Élek”, the title of this art catalog, has different meanings and therefore different translations.
Élek means both to be alive, or to have life, and at the same time means edge, the outer or farthest point of something or any sharp part of an object that could cut.
Contemporary photographer Sára Sebestyén (Esztergom, 1970), articulate in this book, the various meanings of the word Élek trough the language of geometric art that is organically inserted into the constructivist line of Hungarian photography. Her compositions are made up of constructions elements, small details of our everyday lives, framed by engineering precision and soft harmony. The subtle play of colors, shapes, and lights meets the rigid rules of geometry, often built from pairs of opposites.
The works of Sára Sebestyén are defined by the intricate harmony of light and shade, an exciting variety of textures, a balance of shape and proportions. Her photos are impressions of the visual equalisation of unevenness and Inequality, through the eyes of an interior designer turned photographer. The pictures reveal the small, hidden beauties of everyday life, which may only become the center of attention when communicated by an artist. The artist touches classic themes of photography with the sophistication of fine arts, rethinking them from a fresh aspect. The visual language used in the exhibited works is partly a result of the artist’s inspiration coming from fine arts, and partly of the analytical, constructive (and systematic) way of thinking of the designer’s mind. Sára Sebestyén’s method can be captured in that while artists in fine arts achieve the composition through the construction work, she finds all that in everyday reality through this special view. Contrary to painting and sculpting, this means a direct access to the deep structure of the world as the creative process is the result of the seconds-long process of discovery.
The photography of Sára Sebestyén ushers the viewer Into the aesthetics of the everyday world. The artist is Inspired by the presentation of common phenomena in fine arts quality, the finding and rediscovery of lost items.
Sára Sebestyén’s work uses a universal language that can be decoded by anyone. Although Interpretation and beauty always depend on the given culture, these aesthetic compositions use objective factors of form, elements which the composition is made of, that bear a mathematical beauty.
If Sara Sebestyén’s photography were to be limited in a few words, perhaps the following words could be the best candidates: pure structure and colors, definite but sensual lines and fields, classic and new proportions, edges as common dividing but connecting parts of the spaces.