Henrik Kállai

Kálai studied painting and media at the Juhász Gyula College of Education. In addition to his work as a visual artist, he organises workshops for adults and disadvantaged children. He also works intensively with the medium of film. In his very first films, he documented his Romungro surroundings in a dry and spontaneous way.

‘The fact that painting is a fundamental need that has to be satisfied is both a curse and a blessing. Do I enjoy it? Not particularly, because it makes you an outsider. Byprodukt (by-product, by-product, but also waste, translator’s note) is the title of my exhibition, as the focus is on the process of painting itself. I have learnt that the essence of painting lies in the act of painting itself. The painting as a result of the creative process is a kind of by-product. I painted in front of the visitors to my exhibition to illustrate the importance of the painting process when the artist is trying to switch off his consciousness. Even though this is not really possible in front of so many people. I have been painting since I was a child. When I was about 13, I began to think of myself as an artist, and I knew that I would really be an artist, a painter. When I was a child in Erdökertes, a small village in Hungary, we spent a lot of time in the forest, wandering around, painting and drawing. We imagined we were living in the Renaissance, we designed equestrian statuettes, modelled plaster and created oil paintings; all things that seemed strange to our surroundings, to our neighbours. For example, we once tied one of our friends to a life-size cross so that we could paint the crucifixion according to nature. We were so impressed by Renaissance art that we adopted its themes – in this case Jesus on the cross. But then our model’s grandmother suddenly turned up, screamed terribly and accused us of blasphemy. That’s just one of many stories. With my paintings, I refer to my immediate surroundings; I share information about my milieu, my world. I mainly paint those who are close to me, family members, people I know. There are two paintings in this exhibition that are so personal and intimate that I struggled for a long time with whether to show them or not.’