WE ARE TIGHTROPE WALKERS IN THE NATURE Painting

" It is beautiful and it stirs my soul. It feels like a reflection of our everyday... The challenges, the quiet, the unseen seen lurking in the depths of Mother Earth and the depths of our own being. We walk a tight rope to find balance." Tammy Frederick. " I never thought of it that way. When I first looked at this work of art I saw the beauty but as I engaged and followed the flow on the surface and through the dimensions I shivered as I felt the truth of it. The painting helps to open a new understanding of life universally and personally." MY CREDO The challenging questions and my answers to be given work exactly the same way as a genuine, Norwegian wild salmon that is splashing in the crystal clear water, grows strong and is healthy and huge, proliferates, brings happiness to people within its sight, and when it is caught and sliced, gutted, has the tail, head and fins cut, then it does lose its essence, its organic entity. Although from a certain point of view each of its pieces is important, delicious and healthy, e.g. as food for people. It is nice to look at a thin slice of salmon, especially when there are several of them, but one slice cannot give the essence that a whole, intact Norwegian salmon has got. That is why I would like the interview to present the essence of my personality and oeuvre. The questions can be unfolded from the answers, this essay contains within them and, as the whole, it may be more transparent. Heisenberg is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who researched through his experiments how one atom meets the other ones but after some time he entrusted it to God's existence as the system became so complicated. Its elements are evidently similar to the universe, however, the connection between the elements of the system shows how important the butterfly effect is to the Earth. If a butterfly moves its wings in the Brazilian rainforest, this can cause a tornado in another part of the world and vice versa, that means, the events have a very strong effect on each other. The determinate factors are interaction, ecological footprint, the necessity of biodiversity and the fourth one is albedo. Albedo is important. It expresses the effects of solar radiation on the Earth. The luminous surfaces, like the surface of the seas, simply reflect the light while the dark surfaces absorb the heat of the sun. It is easy to prove with a simple experiment. If you put a black material or a stone on the snow the snow melts under it and around it. This is what is happening on the Northern Pole nowadays where melts and molten areas are getting larger and larger. That is the continental shelf. The rocks in places are basalt and are mainly dark and are exposed. They absorb the heat of the sun more intensely and make the glaciers, already molten, melt faster and the thickness of the ice is halved. Now, this albedo does increase the greenhouse effect and both the pace and extent of the temperature of the Earth are getting higher and higher. Let's turn back to arts. How can we capture it and why do we have to? I deal with these issues in my art. I see them through the eyes of a biologist and a traveler who elaborates these issues not just through the experiences of others, although that is also important, but especially when they derive from authentic scientists and authentic sources, they are also rooted in my own experiences as I have traveled around the Earth. It is here where I have mentioned the problem of "the complete and incomplete". This is where philosophy and the philosophical background get connected, and the question of what is most important in arts? Teaching, education, presentation, demonstration, that there is still such a world where we, human beings, can cooperate with nature well, where the air and seas are clean, the soil is fertile and free of chemicals. All these are deteriorating nowadays. I have already mentioned one of the sad consequences: the coral reef is losing its polychrome features. I could see it with my own eyes in Australia, at the Great Coral Reef, huge areas are decaying, turning grey as the small corals are dying due to the acidification of the sea and the temperature rise. Acidification and 1-2 degrees Celsius temperature rise devastate corals that serve as food for coral fish and other creatures. Predators, octopuses eat these coral fish and their position in the food chain becomes void and, thus, the whole food chain gets broken, is transformed due to the above mentioned cause and effect correlations, due to the consequences of the problem of "complete-incomplete" and the butterfly effect when one thing decays it will have an effect on the whole system. This is what is happening to the Earth now because of human intervention. I draw and paint these events and try to signalize that at the beginning there was a very-very active, colorful world and this colorful world is sustainable and must be sustained! This issue is also called the need for sustainable development. As a teacher, I am trying to teach these basic principles and follow them as well. Scientists as indicators have been researching and signalizing the changes of the world. In this change, arts can play a significant role, naturally, in positive changes! How important are philosophical elements and what are they? I have studied Greek philosophy. Aristotle and Plato started dealing with the philosophical elements discussing the most crucial questions, like "Where are we from, where are we going, what are we?", and practically, the whole history of philosophy functions along these principles in exactly the same way as evolution put it into practice during milliards of years when life on Earth started to emerge. The whole evolution is a very difficult, very long, well experimented, well-established system. As a result, the highest living creature of mankind, homo sapiens, emerged. I stress that human beings do belong to this system. They are not separate, they are – according to our current knowledge – on the top of this system, on the top of planetary evolution. This is what philosophy is about. I describe this human, physical and mental evolutionary process and show that at the end of it we are destroying the Earth. I think if I compare the teachings of philosophy, evolution, and sciences with my experiences and the interpretations of artists working and thinking in previous centuries then we arrive at a very good picture of the opportunities. It could show the way to the solutions and it is a kind of criticism as well. How should we unite forces? Let me talk about the ways. The best way of communication is the Internet. This network is spread all over the world and with this network, we can forward information, including my paintings with their content, quickly and efficiently. With the previous principles, with this describable visual "text", hopefully, everybody can find the phase, the color, the shape, the train of thoughts, perhaps the philosophical content that enable him to change his or her own life. According to Heisenberg’s” Beyond Physics", his principle "complete-incomplete", mentioned above this can be realized by introducing changes locally. The individual must be aware of his or her environment, his or her own soul and thoughts, his or her own evolutionary results, he or she must know and sense them and how he or she can make favorable changes. If everyone on Earth, billiards of people, can accomplish it, then, hopefully, the coexistence with Nature will be solved on the Earth. You need not coexist with nature as the law of evolution is that we must live in nature, not with it! We are not separate parts of it but organically belong to it. Just like when we travel further in the Universe, the Earth is an organic part of it and this is where the law, called the law of equalization, comes along. When something suffers a radical change in one direction there is another factor in trying to balance it. This is called entropy. Entropy aspires to achieve such balance. My paintings and works want to communicate these laws based on my previous studies. I consider it important to make these correlations AUTHENTIC through my experiences that I collected during my travels. This is why I love the excellent scientists who I deal with in my works, like Stephen Hawking, whose achievements in astronomy, mathematics, and physics are united in his legacy. His wish was to save the results of evolution; nature and its apex, human beings. Anyway, the Earth will fall, at some point, onto the Sun due to natural reasons and will perish. It is already threatened by global warming, too. Mankind needs time to find a proper place to live, a livable planet. The Earth is getting older naturally and will die and this high level, human presence in the Universe, should be carried on. This was Hawking's principle and philosophy. I connect these scientists, authentic scientists in an authentic way with philosophy, with the above-mentioned philosophical trends. The other resource is the scientific programs of the BBC, Nature, and Science or Natgeo. To me, these channels present the achievements of the best, most talented researchers and scientists of our times, to the audience . Apart from my own experiences, with their help, I am able to orientate, and I am trying to infuse the information into my pictures. I usually let it filter through my brain and during elaboration I can state that they are already embedded in my drawings. So, I can see that the idea I had seen a day before on BBC appear in the small details. It is possible that it was not me who has discovered it but is of the evolutionary subconscious. This subconscious is present in every human being, it is our close relationship with nature. This is why we must protect it as, at the same time, we also care for ourselves by doing so. I draw these tiny phenomena as if I saw them through my favorite microscope. But the microscopic reality is not everything! What’s more, not everything reflects reality, but it reflects reality in a figurative way, thus, the elements of reality, the visual forms appear in an abstract form. Sometimes these microscopic elements can be just easily recognized as great natural forms, trees, rocks, corals and the sea. I do not usually like depicting concrete because for me it says less than the "reality" dreamt of and seen by the brain. And here comes a philosophical element: the unification of analysis and synthesis. When you analyze, segment something you have to make the task or problem microscopic and observe the elements it consists of and the characteristic features it has. When you piece together these elements again you synthesize them, and you need a greater synthesis that makes them fit into the elements of the system. This is what I do in my drawings and pictures. It seems to be very complicated but I declare – not like a friend of mine who says less would be more – that my drawings, paintings, and lines do look really more but the world is terribly complicated and from this complexity, which is nice by the way, and beauty those small elements can emerge by which we can expand our knowledge when we examine them. Scientists are engrossed in separate fields. But I can completely accept their deep knowledge, the issues when they announce the results of their research, be it medicine, science, biology, humanology or astronomy, that I especially love, and all have a great impact on me. From the results and elements, I piece together evolves the synthesis of a world where we live now and is visualized in my paintings. Anyway, the world goes beyond the boundaries of the Earth proven for example by the Hubble space telescope and shown by the BBC, Nature, Science and National Geographic channels. I think they are AUTHENTIC. It is very important to communicate authentic information. Artistic information and scientific information are seemingly contradictory. Artistic information based on facts consists of a lot of subjective elements beyond scientific information. These subjective, emotional elements very often seize me. Sometimes I consciously do not make them seen or do not show the concrete picture I assign to a topic. For example, global warming. Well, I think, when generalizing you can tell much more if I make it abstract and reduce the elements of reality to the general. You need not show, or paint concrete buildings burnt to ashes or draw molten glaciers or a polar bear as it is swimming on the shoreless sea and perishes there. Although, I happen to have such drawings. Besides its structure, an essential element of my art and whole the process is what I use it for. For teaching. Being a teacher, I have the urge to pass on my art. I have to motivate, teach and make a great impression on the audience, mainly a strong, visual, emotional effect by which I want to show them the world. When it happens, the picture should have such elements that help the viewer find a strong point connecting him to reality and enables him to find relations to nature as mentioned before. Who and what kind of people have influenced me besides scientists? Nowadays I am "making friends" with Basquiat and have painted a picture entitled "Where Are the Angels of Nature, Mr. Basquiat?" I consider the actions of people and artists important who can contribute a novelty to mankind. Jean Michel Basquiat was this kind of person! And I am asking him because he is sitting on the clouds together with Andy Warhol swaying their feet and talking about what are the important things and how important they are in life and beyond it. Andy Warhol said that anyone could be famous for 15 minutes. Being famous is important as the world is composed in a way when appearing in the media or on the Internet, a product, even a work of art, a picture, a painting and its contents, too, gets much more attention when an artist or a celebrity stands by it. Thus, the protection of the environment and celebrities are connected. Leonardo di Caprio can be much more effective in environment protection than an everyday person. Unfortunately. But still, this is not a pity if we can "use" these celebrities for what Mr. Basquiat did. Probably rooted in friendship full of emotions and deeply influenced by emotions. Andy Warhol was his good childhood friend and so was Madonna and other famous people. I like his sarcasm, I like his cynicism, I like his youthful coolness, his outrageous, flicking mentality that made him able to attract attention. And I like this "animal instinct" of his coming from great depths of the subconscious. And, the way, how he depicts in his art the ancient tribal signs that sometimes show some quite frightening figures, skeletons, heads and roaring wolves. He drew pictures that have a very deep, expressive effect on people. The roots originate from street art as he started as a graffiti artist and painted wall paintings on the walls of the New York metro lines. Keith Haring also did the same as he painted the walls and could talk to millions of people each day and communicate important emotional actions. The reactions were different. Evidently, for those who were used to painted apples, it was horrible. But, by all means his paintings were the results of a very deep, psychological process. For me, they represent a connection with nature. They produce similarly deep psychological results rooted there. You can make an influence on people by the pictures, by the systems rooted in these ancient, tribal signs. They make people deal with it at an ancient, instinctive level and they even might direct people. The title of my latest picture is "Mr. Basquiat Has Answered". The message of our ancestors is: love Nature. Now, my third picture will be about not just loving Nature but also exploring it! When you get to know it, you will be able to love it. The more details you get to know, the more you will love and respect it and protect it. And this is where it is connected to philosophy and to Heisenberg, to "complete-incomplete", to Hawking, to realize how important it is to be absorbed in more and more details. Because these are the components of yourself as well. Evidently, it is relevant that nature should arouse deep emotions in you! Naturally, the impressionists have had a great effect on me! And I think of all of them. They expressed the ancient dreams and desires of people through colors by making them see reality but by far not so pictorially as the Renaissance. But it was not necessary. Pointillism, "Monetism" (just one eye, they said about him, but what an eye) and Cezaneism that depicted the mountain, Mont Sainte-Victoire, or Alfred Sisley, or my favorite, Seurat, the pointillist, who pieced together the nature as he saw from three colors, based on facts of physics (color theory), that give a complex picture from a distance but if you look at it from close it is a world consisting of colorful points. So, the need for analysis is present and, naturally, synthesis is also accomplished. What is the most important in this whole thing is that if I exaggerate the colors of nature, overdo according to my own perspective, I still reflect nature. There is a foundation: when we look at nature through special glasses, its colors will be different, and when we look at it through a filter (let's say I filter out blue), the color will again be different. This is a great faculty for human beings. Although in the fauna color vision does frequently occur, sometimes it even gains on the performance of human sight by sensing such complex colors, but there are a lot of elements that are missing from the spectrum, but human brain can make up for those. What the eye cannot see, the brain can in profusion. This is another important element of my art. Besides the real elements (the above mentioned microscopic and macroscopic elements) the brain is able to depict the emotional, subconscious elements created and existing just in the brain. Sometimes I feel the Good Lord is directing my hand as I do not physically feel the need for thinking, the momentary pressure, the effect and direction of muscle work, my brain is not told what to paint or draw. However, when I synthesize the picture and look at it, I realize that my brain was working and think that the ancient, original, DNA motivated world built into my brain appears there. That is, I produce a drawing motivated by evolution and divine origin. And that is true! Possibly, it attracts the attention of other human brains, so a relay, a sensitive and understanding audience is needed as I am the beacon; this is how it operates. This is what I did earlier: I launched the slides made about my pictures with laser and a projector to the starry sky knowing that these lights, colorful photon units were sent into space, into the distance of 13.5 billion light-years of the Universe known so far. It means eternity for mankind and in the terrestrial sense but the fact that I launched them meant that I have created some feedback, that I am able to send a drawing from the very depth of the subconscious world fixed by my brain, which evolved from stardust to the Universe. And I do trust that somewhere, somebody, somehow will catch and detect the signal because, as I have already mentioned, I am the beacon and if I find a proper, sensitive relay then he or she will be able to receive it. Why is it important? Just because everything is related to everything on the Earth just like in the Universe. And, there is a kind of a lesson of a tale: if we cannot help ourselves then perhaps someone will help us. But you cannot rely on it. We should trust in our own thoughts and in realizing them. We should get the message to people: they should not get stuck at the everyday vegetation, instinct level, not with everyday problems – everybody has loads of them – but we should make them think beyond these. But people can only think when we make the world very simple, concentrate on food, sex, drink and the basic emotions affecting them. Via my pictures, I try to simplify a certain detail and send it around the world on the Internet and at the same time forward the complete picture as well in small fragments, details, abstracts, and photos of it. I often rethink and remake them and show those details as well so that these details might arouse interest in natural phenomena. My large drawings require enormous time and energy due to their meticulous elaboration. They nourish on tiny, independent pictures that are sketches, like the 400 paintings of my series "On My Way” where I forced myself to work on the canvas or some other surface where my hands could move very fast. I want to eternalize the moment that the subconscious transmits to the muscles of the hand and the body. To express and release what the subconscious communicates directs and thinks in a very fast, very firm way, with great dynamism and élan. And then I analyze it, synthesize it and correct it, but very often I do not touch it at all. These are small details, more precisely, the pictures of 25x15cm or 25x35cm size, are the formal and visual bases for the large pictures and paintings taking shape. Thus, they become the analytical manifestations of those thoughts and emotions. And the synthetic manifestations are the large pictures. But they can be decrypted, like when we unravel the crochet or some material. If I segment the large picture into small pieces the origin of the small pictures gets revealed. Naturally, I do not present the small drafts, pictures in a slavish way on the larger canvases but with the prints in the brain. When I want to communicate an idea with sentences, I have to use the words I have learned. This is why for example language is important. Let's say the English language if you do not understand English you know the letters in vain. It is most strange that it consists of the same letters as Hungarian or any other language unless it is Cyrillic or some other kind of information but when I depict them on my pictures, the visual signs, these visual lingual signs, then during the synthesis they get combined as words, sentences, philosophy, a painting, a picture, a piece of art. You must be able to transmit simple signs. Yes, this is important and that is what I have done in my books: „ANATOMY OF THE SOUL. DR. PROKOP ANATOMY”, „ OLD DIARY" and „ILLITS PROPHECIES BOOK „. They contain the genetic family origin, too. But, as we know, 99% of the genetics of all people alive now was the same as that of our great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers. It is important to gain experiences from the memories and knowledge of our ancestors that we keep up, on the one hand, genetically, that we think does exist in us, in all our cells and cartilage. On the other hand, all that we have heard about the course of history and our own life story, that is, "the story". These two are entwined and make the ego, the inner self and this self-results in the painting. The most important synthesis here is the connection with Nature and connection with the elements, global warming, biodiversity, the ecological footprint and aldebo also appear. Urban designers - architects, designers, technologists, and scientists - must cooperate as the majority of the population of the Earth drifts towards towns, obviously because of economic and livability reasons, and it means that the area of towns is increasing. Unfortunately, at the expense of natural areas. The metropolitan cities spread like the suffocating tentacles of the octopus and the supporting branches of trees get bigger and bigger and their sustainability must be solved. This is why the cooperation of architects is extremely important so that they should design buildings that are not only esthetically nice but function in a natural way. Nowadays, there are a great many buildings which are self-sustaining. They use solar panels, natural ventilation and the geothermic energy of the Earth for cooling and heating. Condensed water is reused in the system, the generated carbon dioxide is diverted and, in the greenhouses, plants are grown among special conditions and livestock is bred there. Sewage is recycled and reused within the same system. These are very important steps. And this is why I say that I use the elements of science, too, in my pictures, as they have an influence on me and big towns, metropolitan people and their way of life get a role in my visuality. Geographical forms like residential buildings, the underground, cars, roads and other concocted forms created by people and also organic forms must also penetrate my works. Skylines and the visual structure of towns are defined by organic elements and elements controlled by people, thus they become livable and cleaner. It is very important that towns, cities, and megapolises are practically the terroirs of squalor from all aspects including morality as well. This process must be reversed. There are a lot of places in the world, for example, New York, that's what I hear about it, where they are proceeding with urban reconstruction in some industrial areas, districts and other territories (Harlem). To achieve these goals financial and economic principles need to be changed. Money is an important issue in my art as I am able to invest it not just in my own art but, coming from my heart, in such developing disciplines as biodiversity. I think these are very important issues. But healthcare or artists dealing with environmental protection could also be given support and emphasis. This is also one of my aims. To establish a school. Being a teacher, I would like to blend artistic approach, love of Nature and the environment with environmental protection and not just for artists! Scientific foundations, ethical and visual principles, human approach and approach to Nature and honest approach are inevitable. It requires a moral and ethical basis, it is evident that the youth will acquire the conscious approach that must be based on strong morals by learning and teaching. We can stick to the teachings of the Bible to "love your neighbor as yourself, do not kill, do not steal". When and where these young people grow up and get into responsible, decision-making positions as directors, industrialists, producers or entrepreneurs, they should choose the right direction. They should be enabled to make a choice. And hopefully, my pictures will have an influence on them. Thus, I destine some role for "generation Y". Because they play a very important role, partly, because they will be the victims of global warming. But, they also have the capability at their hands to change this world very quickly, very efficiently and very consciously. I would like to support them, give them help and get my pictures to them. As I see, they like and collect my pictures (the passion of collection does not only concern my pictures) but proper financial help is necessary. Concretely, it is necessary to acquire the money so that I could develop and motivate more people. This is why I am trying to be incorporated into every system supported by authentic, professional experts like Art Productions in New York. Visegrad, 09.09.2018. Prokop Igor Eugen Artist Igor Prokop Igor Prokop Artist Art CritiqueThe Critique Igor Prokop is an outstandingly pure abstract painter whose creative core is centred around the relationship between man and nature and their evolution within a ‘natural order’, uniting all aspects of the physical world that surround us: science, art, music, history and the environment. His works express the full power of abstract painting where colours, lines and shapes blend together in a captivating interpretation of the artist’s inner essential feelings. This translates into a type of personal signifier, or language, expressed through a kaleidoscopic mass of colour exploding across his canvases and reminding us of American II generation abstract expressionists Joan Mitchell and Frank Stella and Chilean Roberto Matta. Verve and panache mingle together in a multitude of vibrant colours that combined with the richness of the compositions and elaborate lines, create lyrical images that depict Igor’s sensitive outlook on life and connect forcefully with the instinctual recesses of the viewer’s own subconscious mind. Igor’s use of intense, lively and vivid colours create movement and dynamism within his paintings that combined with the complexity and intricacy of the lines, give his works a unique perspective and understanding of the world of abstract art. Man, nature and eroticism, with all their complexities and convolutions, are the main themes that characterise Igor’s subjects and testify his curiosities and concerns about the evolving future of the universe. Prokop is an exceptionally talented artist, with a forceful drive that emerges in all its clarity throughout his paintings. His amazing artistic ability and rich imagination relieve the viewer from the dominant, rational norms of considering and thinking about art. On the contrary, one must experience his works and enjoy them at a completely visceral level, to fully capture the intrinsic beauty and importance of his works. Igor is truly a gift to the world of modern art. Karen Lappon