Zsolt Bodoni
(b. 1975)
born in Aleșd, Romania
lives and works in Oradea (Romania) and Budakeszi (Hungary)
Zsolt Bodoni (born 1975, Alesd, Romania) is a Hungarian painter who lives and works in Oradea, Romania. The special history of Transylvania, its religious and cultural diversity, the mingling of Hungarian, Transylvanian Saxon, Jewish, and Romanian cultures as well as the Eastern European lethargy and vulnerability of the place are among his defining experiences and this duality is what he is eager to grasp in his work. His art observes and reflects upon this historical scenario with skepticism or irony. He delves into archives, peeling back layers, challenging the accepted interpretations, thus redefining our understanding of the origin of subjects related to history, religion or art. His mode of expression is expressive figurative painting. His large-scale canvases are at the intersection of his personal history, weird, desolate locations, inhabited by people whose presence is not always clearly decipherable; we do not see ordinary stories but a twisted, displaced abstraction of their meaning. Beside the ocasionally deep realism of the world depicted, puzzling abstract details figure on his canvas. It is not a structured world but a special symbiosis of painting and reality. Plot does not carry a narrative function. Figurative elements are torn out of their original context. The forms depicted amidst peeling layers are puzzling and enigmatic but their forelife reveals itself indirectly, uncertainly, unpredictively. Bodies estranged of their environment and of themselves step out of the determinedness of time and place—the Eastern-European past.
Bodoni`s work has been featured and reviewed in Art in America, FlashArt and New York Times. In 2009 he was selected as one of the “Top 100 Emerging Artists” of FlashArt International.
EDUCATION
1995-2000 Hungarian University of Fine Arts
NOTABLE COLLECTIONS
Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE
Susan and Michael Hort, New York, NY
The Mallin Collection, New York, NY
The Blake Byrne Collection, Los Angeles, CA
Zoe and Joel Dictrow Collection, New York, NY
The Craig Robins Collection, Miami, FL
Whitespace: The Mordes Collection, West Palm Beach, FL
Jimenez-Colon Collection, Ponce, PR
Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Hybrids, David Kovats Gallery, London, UK
2019 Duo Exhibition with Márton Nemes, BuBu, Buffalo, New York
2019 E.H.M.S, Art + Text Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
2016 Forest, Art + Text Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
2014 The Shining Path, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2013 King Give Us Soldiers, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2011 Remastered, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy
Gods and Mortals, Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2010 Fehérlófia, Son of the White Mare, Ana Cristea Gallery,
New York, NY
2009 The Foundries of Ideology, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, NY
Yesterday’s Heroes, Tomorrow’s Fools, Mihai Nicodim Gallery,
Los Angeles, CA
2008 Monuments, FA Projects, London, UK Art Factory Gallery,
Budapest, Hungary
2006 Hungarian Cultural Institute, Bruxelles, Belgium
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Summer Wine - Einspach Fine Art & Photography, Budapest
2021 Travel Guide - IOMO Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
2021 INSTINCT - The First Transylvanian Review, Transylvanian Art Center, Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy, Romania
2019 Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art, Rosenfeld Rosenfeld Porcini Gallery, London, UK
2017 Disruptive Imagination, Art Mill, Szentendre, Hungary
2016 Disruptive Imagination, Gallery of Fine Arts, Ostrava,
Czech Republic
2015 THE NUDE in the XX & XXI CENTURY, S|2 Gallery,
London, UK
2014 Turning Points, The Twentieth Century Through 1914, 1939, 1989 and 2004, Hungarian National Gallery, Buda Palace,
Budapest, Hungary
Defaced, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO
This Side of Paradise, S|2 Gallery, London, UK
2013 Nightfall, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic
Budapest Tales, Scheublein Fine Art, Zurich, Switzerland
2012 Nightfall, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Debrecen, Hungary
Referencing History, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2011 East Ex East, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy
Prague Biennale 5, Prague, Czech Republic
Leipzig Walkabout, Ana Cristea Gallery invited by Galerie
Eigen + Art, Leipzig, Germany
Art Los Angeles Contemporary (with Mihai Nicodim Gallery),
Los Angeles, CA
2010 Uncertain Terrain, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN
After the Fall, HVCCA, Peekskill, NY
Year One, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, NY
Bad Industry, Mihai Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Face Your Demons, Milliken Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
In Standard Time, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, NY
2009 Show Me a Hero, Calvert 22, London, UK
Staging the Grey, Prague Biennale, Prague, Czech Republic
2008 15 Hungarian and Romanian Painters, Plan B, Cluj, Romania
Portraits of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, FA Projects,
London, UK
2007 Ernst Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary
2006 Art Colony of Élesd, Strasbourg EU Parliament, France
