Elijah Wheat Showroom is energized to present the multidimensional practice of the Hungarian artist Marton Nemes for his first solo exhibition in New York: “AMPLIFIER” opening 3:00PM to 6:00PM for a private view and 6:00PM to 10:00PM for a Techno Dance party co-hosted by CACHÉ Magic Productions, Saturday 19 November, 2022.
Born of his experiences in the US since his arrival in May 2022, Nemes’s work is, in his own words, ready to “feel it all at once”. Sensitive to multitudes, perceptive and generous in its translations, this is a body of work communicating through a lurid and distinct visual language. Yes, Nemes feels it all at once. Even in the vast metropolis of New York City, he sees how the harmony of building and breaking “recognizes a loneliness”. What does art do in the face of this loneliness? It provides hope, energy, frequency and vibration. What does Nemes’s art do? It emerges from those vibrations; synchronous vibrations of neighboring objects, both alive and unliving. It comes from, and adds to, a resonance of frequencies. Color, light, sound, air, space. These are the avowed elements of his work.
Let's discuss water. A close-up splash hits a canvas, immediately becoming stagnant, frozen as earth; in this mode, it is ready for inspection and sampling. Akin to the stroke left by a master of calligraphy, motion becomes still and the line becomes alive. The moment is capturing a poised body, at once bending to a performative application of the paint. Nemes liquifies a certain pain of loneliness to a rhapsody of samples, and like a dance, he spreads & splashes it with a flow capturing time well-spent as all one. This practice precisely emphasizes a mental evolution. His practice proceeds by vivaciously amplifying an animated movement, whilst in the next moment, freezing it.
As a viewer's look comes alive, art is alive, dancing like a waterfall splashing on a glassy surface and captured in a liquid stillness on the reflective plexiglass in the “Meta Paintings.” While he details and hones in on this stagnant yet activated flow, Nemes’s process starts with samples from brightly, often neon-like painted abstractions on canvases. He enlarges the strokes, laser-cuts steel then layers them with acute attention to detail.
Just as a DJ samples, cuts and scratches, sound interjects in these compositions with a fiery heat. The flames coming off the grinding record as it grooves onto the pressed vinyl become a mix providing heat to a body that is ready to dance. There are three layers in a Nemes painting, sculpture or video display, just as there are three layers to a techno track: bass as the calming backstory holding everything together with its consistent rhythm in the subwoofer, mids as the playful conjurer of harmony, and the highs of a tweeter as the atmospheric melody taking flight above it all, like the metal that sparks with a flame, wrapping the splashed-on canvas.
Air is present too. Coats of paint are applied through the compressor and sprayer with a glossy enamel of ‘car paint’ in a technology that with his control becomes a gradient of colors folding into each other through blustery blowing, pushing and adding a soft focus atop an already fluid canvas. The ventilator forces a wind cognizant of its power, blades dancing to a beat, tuned-in and sensory to the bodies moving around the daring LED wall panel feisty with its video renderings of Nemes’s canvases. The confident combination and contradiction of water and electricity arouses and motivates the audience.
And then we see the Earth. There it is, present and immense in his steel sculptures. With decisive, assured and dashing lines, Nemes’s sculptures stand erect in the face of any element. The valor and physical power in their stance speaks adjacent to the river, steel driving into the earth and piercing the sky. Beholden to these elements, the landmark works co-mingle with active bodies. The energy wraps in and around the viewer; the music becomes part of them. The “AMPLIFIER” has arrived.
Márton Nemes (b. 1986, Székesfehérvár, Hungary) is a multimedia artist based in London, creating paintings, sculptures, installations and sounds. He received an M.F.A. from Chelsea College of Arts, London in 2018. Initially inspired by the architecture of Budapest, a city that he has spent the majority of his life residing in, Nemes’s practice is rooted in the colourful abstraction of buildings. Since this early work, and after moving to London, Nemes has been heavily influenced by techno subcultures, continuing to create abstracted colourful works whilst attempting to duplicate the atmosphere and experience of rave culture, creating a disintegration and rearrangement of the pictorial state. Made using a range of materials, Nemes’s artworks are eager to expand and bend, referencing the escapist counter cultures associated with rave scenes, creating multisensory, diverse experiences.
Elijah Wheat Showroom (est. 2015) is a New York-based artist-run gallery and nomadic curatorial experience founded by Carolina Wheat & Liz Nielsen. Currently located in Newburgh, NY on the Hudson River in a 3000 sq/ft Kunsthalle. The gallery is named after their late son, Elijah, whose creative insight, righteous vision, perceptive being and stylistic voice for trendsetting embody the spirit that the Showroom honors. EWS artists are socially conscientious, politically engaged and reflective of a creative community striving to cultivate interactions and instigate conversations. We promote the diversity of artists' voices with contemplative messages while advocating for visual art’s accessibility to all audiences.
