DORKA VINCZE
I was born in Kecskemét on October 16th, 2002.
I studied at the Petőfi Sándor Lutheran primary school, then at the 6-year Petőfi Sándor Lutheran Grammar and Comprehensive Grammar School in Kiskőrös.
I already loved drawing and painting as a child, but it was in 2010 that I turned seriously towards art. First, I played music, I learnt the flute for three years. I completed a right brain course, then studied graphics with my master Attila Furák at the SZÓ-LA-M Basic Art School for two years. I started learning painting with my master, painter and graphic artist Ferenc Kunhegyesi, in 2016. I owe what I know today to the five years with him. He guided me on my path as an artist like a second father.
My work has been exhibited at several local exhibitions, and in 2017 I got third place at a national Lutheran drawing competition.
At present I am majoring in Painting at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest. My master there is József Gaál, a Munkácsi Mihály Prize winning painter, graphic artist, sculptor, art writer, associate professor. He and my other teachers at university have contributed a lot to my development and unfolding as an artist.
The exhibitions where my work has been shown:
2019. Kiskőrös, Petőfi Sándor Cultural Center, title of the exhibition: Az új generáció bemutatkozása (Introducing the New Generation)
2020. Kiskőrös, Petőfi Sándor Cultural Center, title of the exhibition: Dzsanizmus (Janism)
2022. Kiskőrös, Petőfi Sándor Cultural Center, title of the exhibition: Egy csepp Kiskőrös (A Drop of Kiskőrös)
2022. Budapest, Deák 17 Youth Art Gallery, title of the exhibition: Kapuőr (Gatekeeper)
2022. Budapest, József Attila Theater, title of the exhibition: Egy csepp Kiskőrös (A Drop of Kiskőrös)
2022. Budapest, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, title of the exhibition: Szimultán testképek (Simultaneous Body Images)
GÁBOR VÁRADI
Gábor Váradi was born in February 1958 in Ózd, as the youngest child of a poor family. His father, my grandfather, was an unskilled worker at the Ózd Metallurgical Works. His mother, a hard-working Roma woman, put a lot of effort into raising her five children decently and get her family out of the slums. At that time, my father was 10 years old. He was still a child but had to work, like his three sisters and one brother. At the age of 13, he already cleaned bricks with his mother, and after finishing primary school, he carried lye and worked as a cleaner in the big smelter of the Metallurgical Works. He was the only child in the family who wanted to continue his studies, he wanted to become an electric locksmith. My grandmother accompanied him to the entrance interview. He was not admitted, but he was told what other trades they still had open places for. He chose welding and soldering. While he was studying for this trade, he started drawing, and after seeing an exhibition, he fell in love with painting. From that point, he consciously strove to create art. One of his vocational teachers at school, Mihály Kerékgyártó, noticed his talent and encouraged him to draw. He entrusted him with decorating jobs and with keeping the team log. My father worked beautifully and reliably. His fastidiousness has been an example for me. My father wanted to study. He tried to get into the Derkovits Circle, but unfortunately, he was not successful. He applied three times, and each time they told him they had no place. They never asked him to submit any paintings or drawings.
I think it is such failures that strengthen the will. My father also had his moment of “I’ll show them!” He decided: if he could not get help from others, he would help himself. At the time there was a TV program called “How to paint”. My father took up his brush and started painting.
A lot of time had passed in the meantime; more precisely, three years. In 1976, my father graduated from vocational school. He often told us children proudly that he had graduated with honors. That year was also important because that was when my father met my mother.
They got married in 1977, and in September 1978, their first child was born: me. My father built a house in my grandmother’s garden. Starting a family and – as he later told me – being attacked and mocked because of his painting made him lose his will to create. He did not touch his paintbrush anymore.
In 1981, he was enlisted in the army. He first served in Miskolc, then in Budapest. Both cities had positive influences on his life as an artist. It was at the Miskolc barracks that he met his roommate, Gábor Poczok, who had graduated from an art college. He was the first person my father could speak to about techniques, colors or tools. After that, my father started frequenting the Diósgyőr painting studio.
He entered a drawing competition, where the theme was planning army life. His idea won the first prize. Not much later he was relocated to Budapest, to the firearms factory. He was not happy about this. Making parts for firearms was a struggle for a pacifist who was radiating with his love of people, whose dreams were larger than reality.
Fortunately, his squadron commander, Imre Orosz was an art lover. After meeting my father, he asked him to paint a portrait of his daughter. I have never seen this picture, but it must have been beautiful, because the squadron commander often relieved my father of duty. My father’s self-esteem also returned. From his other works, an outstanding one is the mural he painted on the firearms factory about the Five-Year Plan.
In 1982 he left the army. In 1983 my sister, Krisztina was born. We needed a bigger home.
My parents started building a house on top of the Kerekhegy hill. “We started digging the foundations in 1984, in December that year the house already had a roof, and in 1985 we moved in”, my father told me. In this period, painting again took a back seat.
Later he met painter Zoltán Rákosi. They became friends and talked about painting, copying, the works of great painters.
My father’s bookshelf started filling up with albums, confessions of painters, studies. At the influence of his friend, he started copying the works of others.
He was also painting beautiful landscapes, still lives, his wife and children. His works were exhibited in 1991 in the Bükk Cultural Center; this exhibition was organized within the framework of a Roma Day by Baloghné Zsuzsanna Győri, head of the Ózd chapter of what was then called the Cultural Association of Roma People in Hungary. In the same year, my father met Pál Ruva Farkas, spokesperson of the Roma Forum, who organized an exhibition of my father’s work in Budapest at the Hotel Eravis in 1992.
From that time, no year has passed without an exhibition of my father’s work. In Budapest he met Jenő Zsigó, director of the Roma Methodology Center. Jenő’s friendship has meant a lot to my father to this day. They had not known each other for long when my father got invited to the painters’ camp organized every year.
In the summer of 1992, our whole family traveled to Mohács. There we met Tamás Péli, István Szentandrássy, János Balogh and János Csányi – I apologize to those I forgot to list. Meeting Tamás Péli meant a lot to my father, it led to his rebirth as an artist. He started playing the guitar and enrolled in a music school. His teacher, guitarist László Juhász, became his friend. My father also started writing poetry about life, God, work and will.
In the summer of 1993, we took a trip to Törökmező, and this was where my father created his painting The Holy Ghost. This was when Tamás Péli said: “Gábor does not only paint but he tries to write with his paintings.” His works carry a message. It was Péli who opened my father’s exhibition in 1993 at the Ózd State Cultural Center. In November, state secretary Balázs Bárdos organized him an exhibition in Budapest, on Andrássy Road.
The name Gábor Váradi became known, many people were interested in him and his work. Even István Erdélyi, chief editor of the radio program “Magyarországról jövök” (I Come from Hungary) came to visit us.
There were more and more newspaper articles about him. He met András Váczy, who wrote an amazing piece about his “mission” in the magazine Szeansz.
In 1993 he met world-famous Hungarian photographer Imre Benkő, who photographed him for his album Acélváros – Steel town.
1994-95 marked the last days of the Ózd Metallurgical Works. My father, like many others, became unemployed.
He had to support his family, so artistic creation took the back seat again. His friend László Juhász helped him: in 1994, he took him along to Iceland. My father spent half a year by the ocean, making a living as a fisherman. In his letters he wrote about longing for home and wanting to see his son Gábor. He kept painting while working as a fisherman. The people of Djúpivogur, where he lived, liked his paintings, made friends with him, he became part of the community. After six months he flew back to Hungary and became unemployed again. For a year he earned money by loading iron. Later he met György Kőfalusy, director of Frank-Hungária Ltd. Kőfalusy gave him work: first he was an unskilled worker, then worked at the heat-treatment furnaces. He spent two years there, never abandoning his paintbrush.
In October 1996, the exhibition hall of the Ózd Reading Society saw a joint exhibition of photographer Imre Benkő and painter Gábor Váradi.
It was opened by Dr. Hegyesiné Éva Orsós, Head of the Office for National and Ethnic Minorities. The works of the painter from Ózd became known in Miskolc, too. Another important exhibition took place in the Kossuth Club, where István Szentandrássy spoke about my father’s pictures.
Even the Museum of Ethnography exhibited some Váradi paintings, the exhibition was organized by Péter Szuhay. For a long time, my father had cherished a plan: to create a painting studio for Roma children. Then he was thinking about a community center. Finally, after a long time of organizing, he formulated his dream: to create in Ózd a foundation and a tutoring program similar to the Józsefvárosi Tanoda in Budapest.
First, they founded a career guidance foundation, then the Rabindranath Tagore Tutoring Institute. This involved a lot of struggles, battles, successes and joy. The institution, which complements school education and helps children catch up with their peers, has been working for a year.
Painting slowly faded into the background. My father, at the age of 43, became the president of the Career Guidance Foundation. By now, his work has borne fruit.
Éva Váradi
Events:
2023. 03. 03. Musical guided tour of the exhibiton
