Gulyás Katalin et al. (szerk.): Tisicum. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok megyei Múzeumok évkönyve 27. (Szolnok, 2019)
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EGRI MÁRIA: BALOGH GÉZA FESTŐ- ÉS SZOBRÁSZMŰVÉSZ MÁRIA EGRI: GÉZA BALOGH, PAINTER AND SCULPTOR Géza Balogh is a painter and sculptor by qualification, but he is also a dedicated art teacher, a public figure, whose carrier so far is closely intertwined with his collaboration with the establishing and ongoing operation of the Nyíregyháza-Sóstó International Artist Colony of Medalists and Small-scale Sculptors and the Artist Colony of Visual Arts of Mezőtúr. Both are the homes of lost-wax bronze casting. During his career, he learned the praxis and technique of two and three dimensional works, the stylistic solutions of different approaches. From the ‘80s, his watercolour paintings can be characterized by figural-symbolic aspirations and from the ‘90s, mostly his small-scale sculptures related to the camps of bronze casting of Mezőtúr, his oil paintings can be characterized by cubistic, form-simplifying intentions. Meanwhile, his works of public spaces in the same period can be defined as naturalistically figurative, organically decorative. In Géza Balogh’s career, acquiring a new style, a dimensional solution or technique did not mean the renunciation of previous ones. It seems that every technique, style remains with him he had ever started; they had rather widened his circle of creativity, the results and practices of which he could reach back to again years later. His attitude as an artist has a dualistic character. Organic and abstract at the same time, he creates two and three dimensions. He makes coins and statues of public spaces that take up several meters. The symbolism and colours of his previous figurative watercolour, tempera and mixed-technique paintings move in a sensual medium, his ’being-pictures’ reflect the momentary relation of subject and the external world. On his canvases, ’objectivity’ is dissolved by blots organized into lyrical colourist, constructive spaces filled with homogeneous colours. His aspiration towards objectivity got a novel chance, when in Nyiregyháza-Sóstó, and then in the art colony of Mezőtúr, he became acquainted with the possibilities of three-dimensional composition. His thinking as a sculptor transformed his painting as well. In the oil paintings and sculptures of recent years he abstracts much more strongly. In his two- and three-dimensional works he constructs different spaces, with closed or open forms independently existing, built next to each other, with passageways, separated from each other. The abstract approach in his search for the things’ sensual essence with simplified forms excites him to this day. He satisfies his desire to fiddle with story-telling details and detailed forms with his coins. He visibly enjoys and applies profusely the delicate possibilities of lost-wax bronze casting to design. He plays with his hand print, letters, fragments of texts, parts of landscapes and plants. He hides tiny pictures, pediments, pillars between the fragments of memory forms, building panels. Altogether, his intention to abstract becomes even more clear and visible with his more sizable sculptures made with the same technique, with which to express the concepts turned into symbols, he uses the simplest, most apposite forms. In contrast with coins, his every three-dimensional work of art is built from planes, which are concise abstractions and symbols that find their associative roots in our collective consciousness. He finished his studies in 1971 at the Bessenyei György Teacher Training College of Nyíregyháza and then in 1977 at the College of Fine Arts of Budapest. The early years brought him together with his first wife, a teacher of mathematics and engineering studies. They had two daughters, both of which went into higher education. Wanda is a textile artist with a DLA, his father’s partner in art and debates by now. Balogh has many friends, artists and helpmates working in the cultural sector. His strongest relationship is with Edith Székhelyi, which has determined his whole life and art from the late ‘80s, which, after Balogh’s divorce, grew into a bond of cohabitation. The two bases of Balogh’s life are fields of inseparable values, his active work in the fine arts and the practical and theoretical education of activities concerning fine arts. Since the eighties he is an exhibiting artist, a member of several professional organizations and societies, a possessor of artistic acknowledgments and awards. In parallel with his career as an artist, his career as an educator took shape with similar results. Starting in 1984, he teaches drawing as a docent at the Bessenyei György Teacher Training College. In 1987, due to a request, he takes part in establishing the division of visual and applied arts of the Nyíregyháza Vocational Secondary School of Fine Arts, then he works as its deputy director, guiding its 12 classes for eight years. After the reorganization of the vocational secondary school, since 1995, he leads a bronze casting class as a lecturer. Several award-winning pupils of his have been accepted to the University of Fine Arts, who are recognized artists today. From 2003, he is the head of the division of visual and applied arts in Nyíregyháza for the Abigél Multi-Purpose Institute, which is funded by a foundation. He retired in 2008, after 42 uninterrupted years of artistic education. He writes about the completeness of existing in this duality in his ars poetica. „This part of my life was not about work, but the most wonderful creation, the education, the pupils’ becoming human beings, about the essence of our lives. The start of the country’s fourth artistic secondary school completed my artistic activities as well, since the two became one in me then. Both were accompanied by tremendous inner tension, sensitivity, the improvement of talents and the founding of a creative community of art teachers. This could only happen because education and creation both burned just as brightly inside me. Creation and the education of youngsters are the peak of my ’life's work’, a vitalizing element, as long as I reach the end of the road.” 301
