Every year, the city of Athens had to sacrifice seven virgins to the Minotaur, the bull-headed, human-bodied monster who lived in isolation from society, locked away in a labyrinth on the island of Crete, until Theseus, blending in among the virgins, eventually killed him. The mythological story appears in these images in a contemporary setting, reinterpreted and updated to reflect its layers of meaning. The bull, as an archaic symbol of strength, fertility, sexuality, sacrifice, danger, instinct, and transcendence, appears in a location that today promises the greatest earthly pleasures for many. In the decadent environment, the suited Minotaur seems to entertain the virgins, who are more inclined to flirt with him than to fear their fate. Figurative abstraction here functions as a stylized visual language based on individual rules, which is not far removed from the representational modes of ancient cultures. I first sketch the drawings in black and white, in a small format using felt-tip pen, and then paint them in large format, in color. In most cases, both black-and-white and color versions exist of the large-scale paintings.
title: Theseus, Minotaur and the virgins at the Riviera
medium: oil on canvas
size: 160x108 cm
year: 2016
title: Minotaur at the Riviera III.
medium: oil on canvas
size: 140x100 cm
year: 2016
medium: oil on canvas
size: 153x106 cm
year: 2014
In this piece of my Minotaur on the Riviera series, another mythological story appears in the background, in the sea (upper left corner of the painting): the scene from Odysseus's journey where he listens to the sirens' song while tied to the mast. I included this detail here because I believe Odysseus’s cleverness — which allowed him to experience the deadly but tempting song of the sirens — could also be useful in the company of the Minotaur, especially for the six virgins who seem to enjoy the company of the suited-up monster. As in all my works, here too every detail carries figurative meaning. In the upper right corner of the painting, the white arc around Theseus’s motorcycle helmet refers to the plume of the Greek héroes’ helmets. The figures in the background decrease according to the rules of perspective. The abstraction here is also stylized figuration — so after a longer viewing, every detail begins to make sense. Below the detail photos is the black-and-white version of the painting, which — as in most cases — preceded this colored version in time.
title: Minotaur and at the Riviera II. (bw)
medium: oil on canvas
size: 153x106 cm
year: 2013
This painting became part of the Kempinski Budapest collection and is freely viewable in the hallway on the first floor of the hotel. Address: Budapest, Erzsébet square 7-8, 1051.
In 2014, my works were featured in Miami at the satellite fair of Art Basel, the Red Dot Art Fair. At that time, I had already been exhibiting for a year at the MAC Fine Art gallery in Fort Lauderdale, which happened to be visited on the very day of my arrival by the hip-hop artist named Khaotic, who liked my work. He wanted to somehow cover his car with the images he had seen there, and since my vector-redrawn prints were perfectly suitable for this, just a few days later it was already completed. As a result of all this synchronicity, the Mercedes rolled through the galleries of the Wynwood District during Art Basel Week, and since I was personally present due to Red Dot, I was able to sign the car. A short video was made about all this, which can be viewed on the YouTube link below.
These two paintings titled “Minotaur in the Labyrinth” were created through my collaboration with Bang & Olufsen in Vienna. At the time, their showroom on Schottenring had the effect of a sterile, gallery-like exhibition space with its empty walls, which created the opportunity to place artworks there. After my exhibition at Bang & Olufsen in Budapest, I was invited by them to try to incorporate some of their products into my Minotaur series, as I did in the case of the works above – for example, with the iconic Lamborghini Countach model. The result can be seen in the images below. Both paintings include a BeoVision 4-85, which was Bang & Olufsen’s largest TV at the time, a BeoLab 9 speaker, and a BeoSound 9000 6-disc CD player (referring to the 6 virgins without Theseus). In one of the paintings, the all-seeing eye – a female version of Big Brother – watches from the TV, while in the other, there is a scene referencing Ezekiel 25:17 from Pulp Fiction. In these images, the Minotaur’s labyrinth is a designer apartment furnished with iconic pieces such as Le Corbusier’s chaise longue or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona daybed. Above the latter hangs a Damien Hirst painting, while one of the virgins is cleaning with a Jeff Koons vacuum cleaner (see image 3 in the gallery below). In part 2 of the mini-series (gallery images 1 and 2 below), a nuclear explosion over the four horses of the Apocalypse is painted in classical oil technique in many layers, while the eye inside the TV is drawn in oil pencil.
title: Rape of Europe III.medium: oil on canvas
size: 180x100 cm
year: 2025
In 2014, I painted 1 month in South Korea at the Mosan Modern Art Museum art symposium, with 42 artists from 21 countries . The finished artwork was placed in the collection of the Museum. On the photo, a group of children looks at my painting Adam and Eve, which is a motive drawn for the iPad
The camera here is the Creator eye, the apple Logo is also the forbidden fruit from the Bible.
