Janos Kokai

For me, painting is an independent "space" where I can work consistently, yet instinctively, radically, yet moderately, on the questions of my own inner world. Decades of creative experience have shaped my thinking, which has found a concentrated profile in painting, a formal language in which I can express my thoughts and inner world most sincerely.

My works are based on ancient, pre-linguistic experience. The grotesque in my paintings is not merely irony, but also the embodiment of the visual form of fragmented existence. I examine the body primarily as a constantly changing, unstable material. The grotesque figures—entities—disintegrate, merge, distort, and reform, participating in life in an abstract way.
For me, paint is flesh, pulp, a material quality from which my world is constructed. The combined effect of acrylic and oil paint forms an important basis for the underlying content of my paintings. In my work, my goal is to examine how the body, relationships, or even consciousness are born in a space where meaning is not yet linguistic, but physical and ritualistic in nature. I do not construct narratives, but rather create states of being.

My current work is organized into closely related series, which are different pers...