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HENCZE Tamás

Painter

(Szekszárd March 6^th, 1938 - )

Self-Educated. 1960: window dresser school, decorator then he worked as a advertisement graphical artist. In 1969 he was awarded the Pannónia Biennial Award; 1989: meritorious artist award; 2004: Kossuth Award. In the year of 2004 the Széchényi Art Academy invited him to become their member. In 1961 he traveled to Paris, where he was greatly influenced by the modern art he encountered there. After his return home he became acquainted with his progressive contemporaries, then in 1965 with Dezső Korniss, who he considered his master. In 1969 he was a participant of the IPARTERV exhibition. During the course of the 1960’s his artistic career began with the production of colorful and gray gesture-painting (e.g.: Cím nélkül I. /Without Title I./, 1963, Anziksz, Mediterrán atmoszféra /Anziks, Mediterranean Atmosphere/, 1965), which contained influences of Tasizm. By the second half of the century he found the style closest to him, in which he painted stains and ovals with blurred edges onto squared paper, using a airbrush and a plastic tube. This gray system of blurs was connected to a multi-layered world of shadows usually consisting of white and yellow colors on a dark red background. These motif rhythms, so called “spots”, which blend into one another, produce a vibrating effect, which is only in distant relationship to Opt-Art (Vörös oktáv /Red Octave/, 1967; Dinamikus Struktúra I-II. /Dynamic Structure I-II./, 1969; Kör Struktúra /Circle Structure/, 1970). At the turn of the decade he too was influenced by conceptual art, thus preparing a number of sift-prints, and land-art designs. During the course of a specific action he even burned canvases, which he documented in the form of a series of slide photographs (Tűzképek /Fire-Images/, 1974), then he returned to painting. Hencze was always interested in the relationship between black and white, furthermore the malevics type of interpretation of painting, the negation of the narrative possibilities of painting, the production of a clearly visual form of perception. He was deeply interested in different geometrical forms, around this time for instance the sphere (Forgás /Spinning/, 1970). Also in the first half of the 1970’s he dealt with the relationship between horizontal and diagonal planes, the clash of gray and grayish blue vertical planes with washed out contoured colorful vertical planes (Monoton struktúra I-V. /Monotone Structure I-V.), 1972).His canvases often consisted of several tables, and could be interpreted as series works (Vertikális osztás I-VI. /Vertical division I-VI./By the second half of the 1970’s the technique and forms constituting the backbone of his painting had consolidated: he utilizes a rubber roller and a cover for painting, which guarantee constant color and tone, forms darken from the center of the canvas, towards it edges, producing an illusionist spatiality. His forms, as well as his colors were reeducated, cylinder forms, monochrome colors and rhythms became his main devices of expression. The minimalist system of form and color, which he rarely splits up within a pictorial surface, yet then in a quite determined manner, bring forth unique illusionary spaces within the plane of the canvases (Rezonens tér I. /Rezonent Space I./, 1978; Rezonens tér III. /Rezonent Space III./, 1979; Vertikális atmoszféra I-IV. /Vertical Atmosphere I-IV./, 1980). As can also be noticed from the titles, Hencze is often interested in almost formless pictorial spaces, which he brings forth with endlessly fine tone transitions. Strict verticality was first split in one of his most monumental canvases (Ismétlések I-V. /Repetitions I-V./, 1982), with a diagonal line and a half U-form, which is also the most grandiose piece of the cylinder motif series. He painted pyramid and trapezoid paintings during the course of the first half of the 1980’s, these formed canvases, whose edges themselves produce quite strong outer forms, were placed at times on their tops, in other cases onto their bottom segment, thus producing monumental structures. Within the framework of the image surface the arching cylinder forms at times interlock all three sides of the triangle, while in other cases only touch upon three of those, or are torn apart into pulsating forms resembling torn pieces of paper (Fehér tér 45 fokban /White space in 45 degrees/, 1981; Háromszögletű tér /Triangular space/, 1981). In the case of his Trapezoid images the inner diagonal appears, which thus produces a relative inner space (Fekete trapéz /Black trapezoid/, 1981; Fehér Tér /White Space/, 1981; Sötét Tér /Dark Space/, 1981). The geometrical structures produced from these cylinder forms always produces the illusion of spatiality. Within these works, it is not only the forms, but also the utilized colors, which are reduced, Hencze uses shades of white, gray, black and the transitions of these. The painting traits of the triangular and trapezoid images ceases thus the images act as they were abstract memorials produced from simple geometrical forms. It was around this period that the colors red and then blue appeared, beyond the shades of black, white, and gray, not as tones within his color spectrum, but as defining color surfaces (Vörös háromszög /Red Triangle/, 1981). The years of 1982 and 1983 were a turning point in international contemporary painting, and with the exhibition entitled Frissen Festve /Freshly painted/, the breakthroughs arrived to Hungary as well. Hencze continued to uphold a significant role in the new painting movement of Hungary during the course of the 1950’s, in a similar manner to other members of his Neo-Avant-Garde generation. It was a typically Hungarian characteristic that the aspirations of the young painters was closely related to those artist who proceeded them. Hencze actually reached back to the beginnings of his own carrier when renewing his art, his gesture of using the brush to add vibrating brushstrokes in a single movement to his canvases. The difference was however significant. The jagged, torn edged calligraphic motifs, with their fractured line structures were prepared with the previously utilized cylinder technique, therefore the fine tone transitions were upheld by the fractured lines, preserving the neon-like cold light effect of their aura. The color and direction of a spontaneous gesture could be defined, the more spontaneous, the more liberated it was, the more beautiful the outcome became, more informative, thus the gesture itself became more and more materialized. Hencze chose one of the more highly regarded gestures of these, and made that segment into the composition, composing it further. The primer gesture was used merely as the skeleton, as the commencement point of the work, due to the cut and paste technique combined with the cylindering, the motifs within the images draw apart form one another, the spragged ideograms are nothing more than frozen gestures. In the beginning Hencze combines the two painting methods, the cylinder shapes appear together with the calligraphic motifs (Vörös hangsúly /Red Stress/, 1983; Jel és gesztus I-II. /Sign and Gesture I-II./, 1986). The previous, largely disciplined puritan system of forms became more and more rich in his works, the places of which were taken by the wallow of gestures motifs. During the course of the 1980’s his background colors were primarily shades of white (Piros-fehér-zöld gesztus, /Red-White_Green Gesture/, 1987; Vörös írás /Red Writing/, 1989), while b the time of the 1990’s even his background colors become more colorful (Sötét szféra I-II. /Dark Sphere/, 1993; Fehér fény triptichon /White light triptych/, 1995). Hencze produces the painting harmony between spontaneity and rationality, with these images, in such a manner that he takes the drops, which fall onto the canvas during the course of his brush usage, and raises them , incorporating them into his system of calligraphy, thus giving them transcendental meaning. The usage of the motif system of calligraphy became permanent during the course of the 1990’s, Hencze thus produces an infinite number of variations on the same artistic conception.

(Translated by: Vladimir Végh)