Stefan Bertalan Apfel Bäume, 1999
Gouache, pencil and charcoal on paper
34 x 52 cm (unframed)
54,6 x 72,6 x 4,2 cm (framed)
Bertalan was monitored by the Communist regime throughout the 1980s, and could no longer keep together utopian views and concrete, widespread misgivings. He lost control. Nature as a system and science as a duty were shattered ideals in those times of chaotic regression, authoritarianism, suspicion, betrayal and repression. Bertalan’s rigorous networks were torn apart: their luminous, rational structure gradually melt away. His abstract grids turn shabby, ragged by doubts and fear. Plants, geological and cosmic structures reverse into distorted, menacing self-portraits, while the animals and bodies unveil their monstrous traits. The swirling rational universe altered into disarray.