Dóra Maurer
“[…] creating, in a mechanical and serial fashion, an absurd space situation (…) that cannot be explained with the rational mind.”
photo: Katalin London
Dóra Maurer is one of Hungary’s most prominent neo-avant-garde artists. She was born in 1937 in Budapest. Between 1956 and 1961, she studied under Gyula Hincz at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. She later received a scholarship to study in Vienna—a turning point in her career, as, from then on, she would play a key role in building networks between the neo-avant-garde artistic communities of Budapest and Vienna. Her works have been shown in many major solo and group exhibitions in Hungary and internationally and are found in many museum and private collections around the world.
Her artistic career began in the 1960s with etchings filled with organic and grotesque forms, eventually evolving into “psychorealism”. The following decades saw her increasingly expand her repertoire of media to include collages, appliqué, layered drawings, as well as natural materials. Maurer is also known for her cinematographic art—integrating elements of visual art into the audiovisual medium—and for the diversity of her artistic and academic activities, frequently characterised by a keen sense of humour and irony.
acrylic on canvas and wood, 25 x 126 cm
In a recent interview with Juliet Bingham in connection with the show of her life’s work at London’s Tate, speaking about the musicality of her latest paintings, and particularly her Bicines, Tricines and Quadricines, she explained: “I call them Bicines, Tricines and Quadricines. They are all related to musical experience. Wooden strips overlapping partly or crossing each other. I painted two or three colours which were contrary to each other, so the dynamic change of the colours happens before your eyes. I would also like to hear them as sounds—harmony or disharmony—to use the work like a score.”
drypoint print on paper, 70 x 50 cm
drypoint on wove paper, 70 x 50 cm