Ákos Ezer studied painting at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts from 2008 to 2014. His art is closely aligned with new trends in German (Leipzig) and American painting, drawing parallels with the works of Neo Rauch and Christoph Ruckhäberle, as well as the photography-inspired, often dramatic, and sometimes humorous compositions of American figurative painter Dana Schutz. Looking further back, the rounded, often robust, awkwardly moving, and floating figures of the German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann may also come to mind as an association. In his early paintings, Ezer also frequently used found photographs as references, but he soon became frustrated with the constraints of borrowed patterns, leading him to completely abandon their use. Over time, the strict compositional principles of his early works were replaced by a more relaxed approach to filling the surface, resulting in dynamic compositions of twisted, often right-angled limbs that defy anatomical rules and fill the pictorial space.
One of the favorite motifs in Ezer’s consistently evolving painterly universe is the portrait, where the arms and hands arranged around the faces carry great significance, and the depicted figures often gaze upward toward the infinite. The aesthetic of his figures, shaped with expressive painterly gestures and pure, vibrant colors often squeezed directly from the tubes onto the canvas, simultaneously directs and diverts the viewer’s attention from the “undramatic” reality, failures, and banal falls of the “little man” in society.
As a young talent of his generation, Ezer has presented his work at numerous solo and group exhibitions in recent years. These include shows at Einspach & Czapolai Fine Art in Budapest, which represents his work in the Hungarian art market, as well as at Tanja Pol Gallery in Munich, Beers Gallery in London, and institutions such as Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst & Medien (KM –) in Graz and the Cluj–Napoca Art Museum in Romania. His representative in the Asian market is NANZUKA gallery, along with their partner gallery in Hong Kong, AISHONANZUKA. His talent has been recognized with several awards: in 2016, he received the K&H Bank Art Scholarship; in 2017, the prestigious Esterházy Art Award; and in 2018, he was a finalist for the Leopold Bloom Art Award, exhibiting at the New Budapest Gallery. His artworks are included in numerous significant national and international collections.
Ákos Ezer
Headace, 2019