Botond Keresztesi “The Opium Smoker’s Dream”

The Hole

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The Hole presents a solo show by Budapest-based artist Botond Keresztesi, The Opium Smoker’s Dream.

Taking its title from a well-known painting by Hungarian artist Lajos Gulácsy, this exhibition leads the viewer on a green fairy trip through the artist’s unconscious. Referencing European Avant-Garde movements and hanging on walls decorated with early 20th century flourishes, these paintings conjure a vibrant and unruly techno-surrealism.

A swirl of internet imagery, coming together in mechanized and hybrid ways, populates Keresztesi’s bleak landscapes. In this “image cache” we see Japanese Noh masks, Barcelona chairs, Bernini, Brancusi, Thomas the Tank Engine, bicycle parts, piercings, lava lamps, vape pens and selfie sticks. Using both masking and airbrush alongside traditional brushwork, these oil and acrylic paintings succeed as great science fiction: imagining and giving image to the future while criticizing and framing the present.

Botond Keresztesi (B. 1987, Romania) is a Budapest-based artist working in painting, drawing and installation. Remixing references from art history, popular culture, and both digital and everyday life, his paintings crystallize into the fragmented realities of dreamscapes. Recent solo and group exhibitions have included: Galerie Deroullion, Paris; Carl Kostyal, Malmo; Future Gallery, Berlin; Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest; and Schloss, Oslo.