SERIES OF LEVENTE BARANYAI

"1995-96 I began to process Earth based on aerial photographs, which I considered to be portraits of Earth, not landscapes, since I depicted various faces of Earth that nature and mankind had created working together. In my works, the objective viewpoint is balanced by the subjectivity of details, as the realistic painting details are abstracted. This is supplemented by my pastose painting technique and its expressiveness.

My paintings are like surface reliefs and they are heavy, because I use oils only. Space depth is given by the stratification and multi-component colour mixes I use. According to art historians, I dance on the borderline of reality and abstraction. I like this field, because I consider myself to be a trespasser; owing to my personality I like to break down barriers, leaving room for freedom. I chose the Earth as my research topic, as the projections of different cultures provide my painting with endless opportunities. In my philosophy, I regard the creator of chaos as almighty, because order is begotten by chaos, as the geometry of our cityscapes and landscapes has also emerged in our fear of chaos." (Levente Baranyai)

Levente Baranyai always think of thematic series. The pieces of the series are born in parallel, and the series is given unity by the cohesion of the thematic choices.

CITYSCAPES cultural stratification
BIOGEOMETRY agricultural landscapes
WILDLIFE natural landscapes with animals
FLESH LANDSCAPES deserted landscapes
INDUSTRIAL MAY DAY industrial landscapes and economic development resulting in skyscraper districts growing like mushrooms
NATIONAL LAND ART landscapes suffering by abuse of power

FREE TIBET

2017-18

Larung Gar was the largest center of Buddhist monasticism in Tibet, if not the world, until an eight-month program of expulsions and demolitions, which ended in April 2017 after reducing the number of residents to around 5,000. It had previously been run by Tibetan monks and nuns selected by senior members of the monastery.

BOMBING OF SYRIA

2018

The theme of this serie is the bombing of the Aleppo and Damascus.

NATIONAL LAND ART

2014-17

In 2014, the term National Land Art was intended to be a kind of irony, and, through my paintings and writings, I wanted to ridicule the power demonstrations of Orbanescu’s government aspiring for autocracy. (Levente Baranyai)

DIPING PLANES

2013-14

Levente Baranyai’s this series, Diving Planes focuses on the imagery of no longer used, already wasted airplanes, which were put the so called "airplane cemeteries".

INDUSTRIAL MAY DAY

2011-12

As a result of industrialization, scyscrapers rising from the ground tower as obelisks of welfaresocieties over industrial plants and shaty towns. In this industrial landscape all seem happy, but under the rooftopsraging in all the colours of mayday peaple terrified by dictatorship are crowded in."
(Levente Baranyai)

ABC FROM MEXICO

2013

Mexican City's red tarpaulin market tents draw the letters of the abc on the aerialviews.

„A satellite landed over the city, where time was lost in space. Where time is lost in space, my painting knife is looking for the way."
(Levente Baranyai)

AGORAPHOBIA

2009-11

Levente Baranyai’s paintings are gravitated to continuous attention and, in the meantime, envelop the viewer - in his or her own freedom - so that he can connect and then wonder how to observe and accommodate the world. Attractive and Removable Capability is one of the secret messages of Baranja's images. (Janos Kurdy Fehér)

PERIPHERALS

1996-2018

Our airship arrived over the settlements of the Mohammedan people of North Africa. A periphery of a desert town, where the refugee nomadic tribes meet with the blocks of the house walls with carpet motifs. The cheerful colors of the shrubbery of shady slums from the gloomy twilight lights the tales of the Thousands of Nights. (Levente Baranyai)

DESERTS

1996-2018

In certain moments of history some places leave the periphery and gain unprecedented importance along another logic.

FLESH LANDSCAPES

2008

Global warming as a result of human irresponsibility as well as prehistoric landscapes destroyed by natural forces. Surfaces of formerly lush vegetation skinned like seals by inexorable time, and surfaces of flesh wounds open on the skin of planet earth. The arterial systems of dried rivers, the muscle batches of salinated soil sand the signs of desertification. (Levente Baranyai)

BUDAPEST

2005-2006, 2010

The city, the village is far from town and village. But as we approach them, they will become houses, trees, pots, leaves, grasses, ants, ant feets, all the way to infinity. And all this is behind the name "village".
(Blaise Pascal)

THE LIVING WORLD

2000-2003

Flocks of birds wheel above a bay - they cover the protruding mass of painting as snowflakes -, a vast herd of deer crosses the frosen lake – but seen from this distance, there is nothing majestic about them, they look more like ants in a lunar landscape. This serie are dominated by the natural aestetics of masses. (Zsolt Petrányi)

BIOGEOMETRY

The paintings of the series Biogeometry - stadies devoted to the relation of nature and men, to the influence they exert on each other - lie somewhere on the border between representationality and abstraction.

(Zsolt Petrányi)

MONUMENTS

1997-2005

Baranyai paints and builds his pictures at the same time. In accordance with his systematic way to work, he first puts up a thick ground layer determined by the definitive spaces and directions of the composition. Then he practically pastes ont he plastic elements kneaded from half dry paints. Finally, he uses dry glazes abundantly to make the brighter forms stand out off the darker background. Thus spatiality is emphasised by both the colours and the tri-dimensional, plastic forms. The thick oil painting reliefs protrude, shoot out from the canvas, to give the impression of thick forests or bright white cliffs when seen from further away.