Kovács Tamás Vilmos festőművész (1992)
AN INDIVIDUALIST PAINTER In our age which is increasingly shedding its illusions, when uniformity is doing battle with the individual, when we can so often witness the phenomenon of déja vu in art too, when the individuals in the masses of society seek what is similar to the other - and not what differs from it - the appearance of a personality creating something individual also acquires greater value in art too (and perhaps even more so in the visual arts). It is therefore all the more welcome amidst the - almost - tangible styles of contemporary Hungarian painting - to encounter the works of an artist who is capable of following his own laws and creating his own world. Moreover, one who does so without the contrived intention to innovate, who acknowledges the importance of traditions but who does not become trapped in conservatism as a thinker or as a painter. Tamás Vilmos Kovács is such an individual in Hungarian painting in the eighties, one who after a hard struggle to be a painter is „grateful" to fate for the possibility and who, adopting a very conscious, disciplined working method, imposing a form of humility on himself, has become an artist who is not only consistent, but who also has a distinctive, individual character. It is important to mention all this in connection with the art of Tamás Vilmos Kovács because it is our conviction that he is the kind of artist for whom the alma mater provided a decisive grounding, which perhaps still exerts its influence, but which did not bind his hand and art: quite the contrary, it helped in his professional development. He has always been interested in the figure, or more precisely, in what can be said with the figure. Man became the central element in his painting, but in such 'a way that he always wanted to rise above the individual and he made the general - and through it a kind of ideal - into a central category. Tamás Vilmos Kovács's world as a painter is sensitive to morality. He himself is a person who responds very deeply, on the intellectual level too, to the events around him. He is not indifferent by nature which means that he is interested not in the play of forms, but in dramas, in human relations. He may have cause for bitterness as a thinking artist can be rightly deeply disturbed by all the deep crises of our age, but in his works he rises above disillusionment to seek the ideal, the human striving for the better. However, despite the obvious conflicts in them, it is difficult to express in words the content of his paintings and he creates an atmosphere full of tension between the figures portrayed in them which both convinces and draws the attention of the viewer. There is little contact between his figures. Generally they are looking at something else and in another direction; their facelessness is not only a means of expressing the essential but is also a sign of the loss of individuality, of becoming part of the mass. It is rare to see painterly means used for such a convincing portrayal of loneliness where, just as in reality, the „actors' protest in desperation, but at the same time resign themselves to it, accepting it as a kind of destiny. Tamás Vilmos Kovács also has a special attitude to space. This is not of real importance in his pictures, but he uses certain spatial symbols that serve to stress his relationships and the way in which his figures are closed in. His scenes have depth not so much in the painterly as in the human sense, but despite this he is able to intensify the effect with other artistic means. For there are countless painterly values in his world fraught with tension. The discipline and orderliness of the composition are important for him and there are no incidental elements in his pictures, but that does not mean that a more relaxed mood is lacking from his range of instruments. He generally works with pure colours, building on the basic shades, but he expresses his often very emotional attitude with very sensitive transitions and blurrings. The weep of his brush is just as dynamic as the emotions and conflicts that can be sensed in his works. The vibration of his manner of painting is in full harmony with the loftiness of his views. If we seek Tamás Vilmos Kovács's artistic relations, it would be difficult to classify him into any „school". Undoubtedly, he is concerned by the same thoughts as Francis Bacon, the silence of his lonely figures shows a certain affinity with the sculptures of Giacometti and in his treatment of colour his ecstatic scenes may remind us of Béla Kondors's pictures. But despite this, he is a sovereign painter, able to create works that are individual in both theme and emotions. In one of his earlier catalogues, the artist asked: „Do we have to shout out loud to communicate our pain? Is it essential to gesticulate for others to understand us?" No it is not! Tamás Vilmos Kovács's inner catharsis radiates from his works and he only needs to keep on painting pictures for us to answer his questions in the negative and also to identify with his philosophy and the way he sees the world. Balázs Feledy