Novotny Tihamér (szerk.): Fe Lugossy László, Művésztelepi Galéria Szentendre (Szentendre, 1997)

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waiting is hopeful, hot and sweltering. Boredom draws forth suspicious, deformed-faced shadows hiding in the darkness; the darkness of the underworld, the impenetrable landscape of night engulfs the world over-saturated with warm light.

Scenes from a Pregnant Woman's Life

At a cursory glance these pictures are genre-paintings which are linked directly to the artist's life. It is presumable as the main figure of each picture is a woman standing, sitting or lying dressed, naked or in bikini in a room, in a portico or in a terrace. Her corporality, her big belly is always stressed though her nakedness is not erotic, much rather of biological character.

Still-Life with Woman and Binoculars

These scenes are the same in so far as the woman - either sitting, standing or lying, either inside or outside - is not acting, things can only happen to her; there is only one thing she is doing: she is waiting. So these are not genre-paintings, but still-lifes representing solitude, on the one hand through the interpretation of the figures, the quality of the relation between them, and, on the other hand, through the formation and iconography inseparable from it.

The plastic female figures formed with simplicity and compactness - together with the usually large-size binoculars, out of use at the moment, similar to opera-glasses - are placed in space painted with planar patches by feLugossy. The expression becomes unambigous just because of the simplicity of formation: owing to it the figure will be contemplation itself; so objects can also be effective directly, without hiding under the surface of polishment. Sensuously you are attracted mainly by the use of intensive colours. The overemphasis of the decorative pathces of vivid and warm colours is counterbalanced by the greyness of binoculars. The sultriness of environment is focused by the binoculars.This way in the compositions consisting of static forms and few elements the large, warm colour patches accompanied by grey and black represent the burning of hell rather than the busy intensity and variety of life.

The motionless, inactive, meditative, yearning Mother-Goddess could take the binoculars in her hands and use them but she does not even tty to bridge - even if seemingly - the unsurmountable distance ; she does not struggle against the unchangeable.

While the woman appears in her material reality, the man only appears indirectly: through his own lenghtening, representation. The man has merely left his sign behind him (and the result of his deed). The binoculars represent the man not so much through their form but rather through their functional device-character. They appear as an attribute of activity, and complete female passivity. As the woman is present she only could want and do something but she is incapable of it because she has been objectivized just as the man. But in her case the object is her

own body, a pregnant woman's body instead of a selflengthening like, say, a device.

The relation of the woman and the binoculars - in accordance with their objective way of living - is cool, alien and still-life-like. They do not communicate with each other, they do not even seem to share the same space. Only the spectator can see them together. Their relation is not real but metaphisical.

The other objects (mainly pieces of furniture) in the picture partly mark and characterize the place, partly emphasize the still-life character though their independent, traditional meaning is important as well. The objects are practically not repeated so they imitate quasi different places; together with the hot silence of the figures they indicate that it can occur any time, anywhere. As these objects are homogeneous we can think that the different pictures depict different segments of the same space; generalization evokes the image of timelessness, infinity. The majority of objects are linked to womanliness, either in a mystical, practical or/and traditional way. The chest of drawers, the niche - as storing places (the binoculars are kept there); the table, the table-cloth - as they are related to female roles, jobs; columns - which belong to the woman when they do not tower "without any function" - associated with the 'beauty of female proportional system (especially when its pattern is similar to that of the table-cloth); the door - as an exit and entrance (through which the man can get in), since the room, the inner space where the woman 'is closed' is the woman(liness) itself; analogous with the uterus, the test-tube of the chemical wedding, the secret chamber, the tower room and the Church. The bed and the pillow produce intimacy so they can also be related to the woman. They represent materially not only sexual intercourse and softness but can also evoke lazy idleness or they can reach even further through the relationship of sleepingdream-death.

Two pictures, the two biggest ones differ from the others. Their differences - just because they are not independent of the others through their identities - destroy the superficial everydayness of the other pictures, thus they reinforce the metaphysical character of the whole series.

The installation also expresses the traditional female-male roles. feLugossy has placed a shaving-brush on a small shelf beside almost all the pictures. This object, as a typically masculine device, to some extent counterbalances the spiritual-type interpretation of the masculinity represented in the pictures; moreover, its softness rouses erotic connotations in this context. In addition, it indicates the distance from the world of the pictures: this is reality, this is a 'real object’, the others are 'only painted'.

We cannot say all this for certain, not only because this interpretation reveals itself in all the paintings together: or because certain returns are necessary to provide this interpretation but also because our eyesight can be disturbed by the touch of joy and the humour hidden in the installation as well as in the title of the exhibition when - as Májá's thin veil - they are drawn before our eyes.