Next is Now Painting

Part 3 Barakonyi projects one of his photos onto a wooden panel, which had been prepped with multiple layers of adhesive foil. He uses a sharp Japanese steel blade fixed in a pen barrel for cutting out the projected and carefully pre-drawn contours. These outlines break through the foil, also leaving marks on the wooden surface. But Barakonyi’s conscious hand is always selective: only certain details are ultimately highlighted. His intentional samurai tactics of engagement employ the gesture of wounding to tear open in the material one of many possibilities, tuning the projected image to the given moment. The thus created gaps and slits acquire their own unique colour by roller-applied acrylic paint, followed by spray paint. (The use of grey is of special significance because it simultaneously invokes the surface priming practice of the renaissance and the virtual work surface of digital image editing programs.) The foil works as a filter or mask which opens the way for the imprints of various layers as well as abstract forms and figurative elements. It renders visible and records a given quality. Montaged islands of a few select colours make up the final painting – coming into contact with one another in some places and remaining separate in others – which condense into a kind of dreamlike vision. Some of Barakonyi’s works are entirely without colour gradients; they are composed of spots and strong contrasts that deny plasticity and lend the entire image a two-dimensional feel. In such instances, optical space is produced merely from the lines of perspective offered by buildings and sidewalks. Thus, the imprint captures likeness only in its contours and forms, creating a reinterpretation, rather than a double, of the original photograph. Instead of reconstructing the original scene, it is taken as a basis, a point of departure, which, after some thought, is broken down into dualities and then rearranged into a new image according to new considerations of organization. See next...