Reka Csorba

The art defined

My choice of painting themes is shaped by mental health and the relationship between people and the world—how people treat one another, the impact they have on nature and themselves, and social behaviors emerging from different life situations. The small events of everyday life, which are often easy to overlook, also inspire me. I draw inspiration from people, thoughts, emotions, and feelings.

The starting point of my formal expression is the use of animal and plant-based symbols found in classical art. My goal is to reinterpret and reframe these symbols in a new dimension.

Inspired by Warhol

Andy Warhol saw the beauty in everyday objects and made them stand out from their surroundings. He treated these objects in the same way he treated his celebrity portraits, iconising them.

Warhol’s bold use of colour is an inspiration to me and can be seen in my own work.

He used photographs as the source for his work, making alterations to them, but not detaching himself from the real-life representation of his work, which is also true of my work as a whole.

His series on Absolut Vodka does not show the form of the bottle as a whole, but focuses on a single detail. It only hints at the continuation of the shape of the glass with the viewer.

Still Life of the Night

For The Other Half exhibition, I immersed myself in the work of Andy Warhol, observing his subjects and the processes of his work, before starting to realise my work. I compared it with my own working method and started from its similarities. Andy Warhol’s Absolut Vodka bottle is accentuated with strong colour contrasts to emphasise the traceability of form. This bold use of colour can also be seen in my work.

Detached from reality, I create my own characters and their pictorial narrative with their environment, creating a world of my own. I deal with social behaviours and the effects of people’s relationships on nature, which are generated by different life situations.

My workflow and visual world is completely different from Warhol’s, almost the total opposite, which is why making my work for  The Other Half project was a challenge. It was a challenge that inspired me to step outside my usual framework and experiment with new techniques and themes, paying homage to the work of Andy Warhol.