Ásztai Csaba: ÚTON (Kiállítási katalógusok - Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2008)

INTRODUCTION TO CSABA ÁSZTAI'S PAINTINGS Even if Csaba Ásztai's tenderly elaborated art of painting is not a solitary phenomenon (we see similarities in his artistic approach with the paintings of Éva Krajcsovics, and maybe some distant relationship links his art with some of Dezső Váli's work), it still represents such a strongly marked self-determining world within the contemporary Hungarian painting art, which deserves its own place in this context. If we want to stick to the framework of art history categories, his pictures fit rather into the category of monochrome painting. The art historian Lóránd Hegyi describes this school as follows: "It is one of the trends of the post-painterly abstraction, which highlights the internal tone values of the individual, homogenous surfaces of colour, painted in an impersonal way, without keeping the brush's traces, and thus suspending the material, physical effect linked to the surface and producing the idea of space by a kind of painterly "insubstantialisation" and bringing about the impression of eternity. The art of monochrome painting is built on the central role of the colour and forces the structural elements of the image construction into the background." (in: Hegyi Lóránd: Paths leading from the avant-garde. Utak az avantgárdból. Jelenkor Irodalmi és Művészeti Kiadó, Pécs. É. n.) Csaba Ásztai paints on canvas with oil paint in several layers with transparent coating and the frame is often the unprimed canvas. He likes the square whose perfect symmetry evokes the mandalas. Mandala is a Sanskrit word, which means circle. Originally it is a symbol; referring to perfection, it is a symbol of the Totality, of the Universe. Although not necessarily circular in shape, mandalas are always composed around a centre, which refers to the possibility of spiritual penetration into the sacred centre. As C.G. Jung has it, most of the buildings and paintings are to be considered as mandalas according to their ground-plan and they are the abstract depictions of a personality "rhyming" with the Universe and they are at the same time objects to help contemplation and meditation and may even serve as a kind of means of initiation. In my opinion this statement is very true for Csaba Ásztai's paintings, since these works of art attract the attentive spectator with a secret inner radiance, with a magic power and the spectator sees in the pictures something more than an especially harmonious combination of colours. But of what does this effect consist? The answer is simple: the effect is due to the suggestive combination of never very concrete - only suggested - shapes and of unexpected colour-harmonies. Because Csaba Ásztai is a master of suggesting. His hardly perceivable, faintly distinct shapes invite for associations between experiences in half dream, clouds or a never existed underwater world. Even when his painting-visions can be identified - like his work called "My father's chair" - the impression they make is similar to the shapes emerging during the spiritist séances: one is never sure whether they are real or merely the products of our imagination. Honestly, I was very surprised when the painter told me about the simple, almost banal motives which provided him inspiration for the unbelievably rich system of forms having at the same time various layers of meanings. He may take creative inspiration from a shell coming from the Lake Balaton, from a human figure or from Hungary's map. Finally, I should speak about the painter's most important contribution, which is hard to explain with words: about Csaba Ásztai's colours, the soft transitions and mysterious playfulness of delicate tones - it is almost impossible to give an adequate description. As we know, when the painter's rational Ego is mirrored in his compositions, then the colours are the mediums of the emotions. We can state that in spite of all his seemingly temperate attitude and quietness, Csaba Ásztai "plays on several strings" when it concerns his use of colours and he is capable to create such unexpected sensations, which only born colourists may produce. We know about the appearance that a colour covers optically the neutral tone of a colour painted next to it with its complementary colour. So it happens that the big surface of cold green changes the grey frame around it into pink and the light pink tone painted in its middle turns into a light-source. These tenderly radiant inner lights do more than delight the spectator; they become more than pictures wallowing in beautiful colours - as I mentioned already; they become magnetic objects of meditation inviting to an internal journey. György Szemadám 4