op170222. Painting

The work of Gyula Sági, a young Hungarian artist living and working in Berlin, attempts to synthesize geometric and gesture-based abstraction in his works. Mixing graphic and painting techniques, he works on paper with ink, pencil and acrylic. His large-scale works, using traditional techniques, are series of various form experiments. Inspired by the repetitive patterns of technology, digital mapping, charts and nature, he focuses on reduction and pure forms. The pieces in the Analog Noise series, which has been continuously expanding since 2016, are unique hand-drawn works that nevertheless evoke the imagery of electronic devices or computer-generated images, recalling basic forms of data visualisation, diagrams and graphs. Yet Sági does not completely exclude coincidence from the strict, mechanical compositional system of dense lines drawn with ink, which he creates according to simple algorithms: he also incorporates irregular gesture-like shapes that are randomly generated along the ink flowing ont he paper. The works are thus both extremely delicate, sensitive gesture "paintings" and, due to their repetitive technique, meditative tools for the artist. In the repetition of the lines, the coincidentally created inkstains create patterns reminiscent of written language, of machine code. Analogue hand drawing thus resembles scientific analysis, graph or spectrum analysis. Metaphorically, the artist's body functions as a highly sensitive instrument in the creative process, capable of capturing vibrations that only the most advanced technological tools can detect. Sági's creative work reflects a posthuman approach: his drawings can be analyses of radio signals from distant interstellar space, signals reflected from the surface of asteroids threatening Earth's civilisation, or seismographic analyses of the tectonic movements of our planet. Gyula Sági's heterogeneous works are not only inspired by the aforementioned digital visuality, but in some cases can also be interpreted as abstracted landscapes, thus simultaneously operating technological and natural associations. His unique works, which seek to renew the formal vocabulary of abstract art, raise questions about the increasing distance between human biengs and nature.