Pirk László: „ÉLET - JEL - KÉPEK" (Kiállítási katalógusok - Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2004)

THE LAYERS OF TIME IN MYTHOLOGY A few words about the painting of László Pirk A painter, if having a time machine, moved by sacrality can identify with situations, in which the real land - the rigid moulds of the region - is only the dramatic frame of a cultic theatre. In the depth of this theatre not the time, laughed at by Harlequin, suggesting a certain timelessness, symbolizing the death gleams but the maze inbuilt in our life. László Pirk is the prisoner of this maze. And his painting is the symbol of the outbreak from this labyrinth and the exhilirated consciousness of the existence which always tries to be clean. The crater system of his theatre, rooted in mithology, or more precisely in the antiquity echoes not the taciturn dignity of the stones or the stiff vulcanoes but the living breath of arches, gates, pillars and stairways. There is something frightening in this turbulent sigh. Who and what feeds this bonfire - often giving suffering. The imagination of the painter or the anticipated - from the point of view of the infinite unexpectable - future? The impressive system of symbols in the work of László Pirk - with the most important of all, the Sun, compressing life into a grain, flashing from the dark - is vivid because of the fact that the well-known motif is part of the mundane and the divine and is sacralized in a special way: the celebration of creation including God and the man can be found in the most real pieces - painted with the most ethereal colours - as well. Whether it is the Italian or the Hungarian sky - it does not matter, as there is a strong alliance with the universe. The colours of the brush transforming the smile of the soul are strong, because light shines through the membranes, as the truth of the Greek tragedies through the indifference. And László Pirk knows that the construction (Versions of the Labyrinth, Pervading Sky and Earth, Crater-Theater etc.) needing independent series, built on themes is identical with the revaluation of the classic tradition. His "landscapes" are therefore time-travels in masks. The saints and monsters of the mythology appear in the Renaissance-like amphitheater, as if the lust of the collapsing time and the man would be the same cross, or at other times they suggest the same brutality of the asphalt drawings with the excitement of Dubuffet. A strange Adam-Eve fight goes on with the appearance of an emblematic torso in this never-been heavenly and earthly land. Only the already suffered truth is true, as the light breaks the circular maze of our existence, letting the weak go free. Both his excitement concerning cultural history and his bitterness turning classic values into joy become values in this euphoric atmosphere. Those, who are interested in the changing periods of his oeuvre can wander among the pictures between Asphalt drawings - Saint Sebastian (from 1978) and Great-White-Silence-Life (from 2004), on a way, which has become more and more metaphysic. As the deep greens, browns and blues - even as unpolished colours - are graduallly lightening, at the same time suggesting a divine glistening, the traumatic effect of the huge pictures can be noticed. The point of view - seeing this strange land from a certain window - or the diversity of the symbols (snail, bird, gate, Moon and Sun) turn the bird on the picture - with all its traits - to the bird standing for a homely feeling. The symbols of painting - the jug, filled with brushes and the palette - are placed in the foreground, which proves the victory of Pirk László. Lajos Szakolczay 4