Budapest No.54 Artwork - Limited Edition of 50

Budapest is a city that still has to determine what lessons are to be drawn from its most recent and traumatic Soviet past. It remains dazed, paralysed and anxious – trapped in time; it has not moved on. Budapest and, indeed, Hungary’s future path remains unpredictable and uncertain caught now between the new political reality of a Western European Community rallying around the benefits of collective cooperation and to the East, Putin’s Russia anxious to make its historical mark by flexing its newly found nationalistic muscles. In the face of such realpolitik the historical lessons that Hungarians can use to see their way to a better future seem as tenuous and as illusive as ever. This unsettling uncertainty and sense of anxious foreboding runs like strips of barbed wire through the visual language that Michael Pettet employs to convey to us his initial impressions of Budapest. The Budapest works are made using a combination of digital painting and photomontage. The size given is for the image size. Paper size is 91.4 x 61cm. There is approximately a 5cm white border around the actual image for the purpose of framing/signing/numbering and titling the work.