Description

Iván Szkok, who graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, is a truly exceptional artist. Although he studied decorative painting, he also learned modeling from one of his masters, the sculptor József Somogyi. At the beginning of his career, he created oil paintings, but even then he was working across several artistic disciplines (mural painting, tapestry, sculpture), using a variety of techniques.

Alongside his oil canvases, the most important body of his work consists of reliefs made of plaster, clay, tempera, and polyester. These works combine the tools and modes of expression of both sculpture and painting at once. This remarkable synthesis is also evident in “Annunciation.” At the center of this sacred-themed painting-relief, we see a delicately featured female face looking back at us, touched by hands reaching in from almost every direction of the space.

A distinctive feature of Szkok’s work is the spatial effect of his figures, which seem to step out of the picture plane. As one passes by the relief, it appears as though the angel referenced in the title follows the viewer’s movement with an illusionistic effect, never taking its gaze off our motion.

This expressively powerful work by Iván Szkok fits well into his series of reliefs, which are at once unique and striking.

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