Prokop Igor Eugen

pittore

„I am an earthling”


My name is Igor Eugene Prokop, I was born on 13 July 1953 in Budapest and I still live in Hungary, in Visegrád.
I come from a family of doctors and had a wonderful childhood. My globetrotter grandfather has been the most significant idol for me in the family legendry. I am Hungarian but my art cannot be restricted by geographical boundaries. I have drawn on the natural beauties and cultural heritage of my own country but the isles of New Zealand and Oceania have had at least such an effect on me. I am homesick being away but I do not know which my real home is, and I am always longing back again and again. I am an earthling.
I have traveled round the world and know: it is small and fragile! I can see this from 11.000 meters above but the cavalcade of the same magic can be experienced through a microscope. My sources are being on the road, observing and painting off the experiences imbued and seeing them revived on the canvas.

I love the sea, the grass o the meadows, animals, and the animate and inanimate world. The material. Do I happen to be a narrow-minded materialist? No, definitely not. The spirit is non-material but the material is the worldly realization of the spirit. As a dental technician I had to melt metal, make moulds from wax, plaster of Paris and porcelain and I got enchanted by the multitude of opportunities hidden in the material. I learnt Biology and drawing and wandered around the world. I devoured beauty, the wonders of nature, got to know men and myself. I perceive the world through the eyes of a scientist and an artist and try to interpret and reproduce it. I have a colorful vivid mosaic of it and I attempt to systematize it in order to create a new picture of it, my own image of the world. Nature is the greatest wonder of God – perhaps God himself – and my own style: Pro Bio Art (Prokop, Biology, Art) is built around it.
Its essence is a kind of complexity: the introduction of the world perceived as a biologist and the application of traditional and brand new technologies. Starting from traditional painting (oil –painting, graphics) I have arrived at DOT ART, a kind of microscopic art creating micro worlds. It is completed by Bio fusing art – melted glass technology - and it consummates in Brass Blass Panel Painting (BGPP) – combining fusing glass with painting and metal (copper plates). Nowadays I combine these methods with the most modern technologies: acryl, Digital print, video, and computer graphics. These techniques derive from each other, influence and inspire each other creating harmony.

The most dramatic event of my life has probably been when due to an erroneous diagnosis I worked in the belief that I would only live one more month. Looking back this was my most successful artistic period. I reevaluated everything in the world and completely new pictures and a new attitude to the world got visualized in my mind. Due to the difficulties I had to endure during my illness I did realize I had no time for l'art pour l'art and reflect the beauty of the world merely as aesthetic experience but my art must have a purpose, a message and impact on people. And this is an enormous responsibility. My pictures are intellectual messages to be decoded and they give very intense emotional experience at the same time with their almost shocking wealth of details, intricacy and colors. I would like to live to see the same colorful world that I got to know in my youth and be able to show it to everybody.

“Below you the Earth, above you the sky and the ladder is in you.” (Sándor Weöres)

Formazione

Information about creator


Prokop Igor Jenő

Curriculum vitae
He was born in Budapest in 1953. He graduated from the Teacher Training College in Eger as a teacher of Biology and drawing in 1978. He studied Biology at József Attila University of Arts between 1981 and 1983 in Szeged, then philosophy in 1984 in Budapest, film aesthetics in 1987 and between 1991 and 1993 he studied design at the University of Applied Arts. He studied and worked in New York, Heidelberg, Auckland and several other places of the world. Besides painting and drawing he has worked with glass as well for 20 years. The artist has gone through the phases of making lead-glass and tiffany. Fusing glass is the result of a more advanced technology. The process goes like this: the elements of glass coloured in the material are faceted with diamond burnishers and these pieces are melted together horizontally and vertically like a mosaic. The surfaces, panels and pictures reflect the natural forms seen during the author's trips through the eyes of a biologist-artist.
His trips:
- 1984 Cuba
- 1985 Mongolia, Caucasus
- 1989 USA, New York and Walhalla
- 1993 Germany, Heidelberg
- 1995 France, Paris
- 1996 Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Polinesia, USA
- 1997 Ireland, Scotland
- 1998 Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, USA
- 1999 Ireland, Portugal, Madeira
- 2000 Florida, Canada, Ireland
- 2001 New Zealand, Canada, USA - New York
- 2002 New Zealand, Tonga - Nukualofa
- 2003 New Zealand, Vanuatu - Port Villa
- 2004 New Zealand, Portugal, Canada
- 2005 New Zealand, Tunisia

Individual exhibitions:
- Budapest, Graz, Barcelona, Eger, New York, Berlin
- Kecskemét, Heidelberg, Salzburg, Debrecen
- Visegrád, Toronto, St. Pölten, Auckland
- Bécs,Cambridge
- Luxemburg ,London,Chianciano,Montreal,

At present he lives and works in Visegrád.

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Tematiche

Workpepole Etc.



"I love the sea, the grass, the tree, the animals, the animate and inanimate world. The material. Am I perhaps a narrow-minded materialist? No, the spirit is immaterial but the material is the worldly manifestation of the spirit. When I worked as a dental technician, I had to cast metal and mould wax, plaster and porcelain. I was not captivated with this narrow range of people. I studied Biology and drawing and also taught them, I was wandering around in the world, loved the colourful, transparent world of the Cuban seas, the whirling movement of the barracudas, the endless and timeless space of the Mongolian deserts, the chaotic and artistic magic of Indonesia, enjoyed skiing among the peaks of the Elbrus considered even by Reinhold Meissner one of the most amazing natural slopes. I savoured exploring Vanatau, Tonga, Tahiti and Bora Bora and the friendly people there, their songs, sorrows, faith, their endless respect for their beloved islands and enjoyed their unrestricted appetite for beauty, erotica, exuberance and abundance. I was diving in seas and oceans where lemon, steel-blue and red fish were flashing and gleaming with intensive colours never seen before in the tropical sunshine together with corals and plants. The impenetrable rain forests have presented all the variations of green. And the island of real peace: New Zealand. I love it. Although my homesickness drives me home to Hungary, being here I do not know where my real home is and I long to return there. I have travelled around the world and know: it is small, blue and fragile! This is what I see from the height of 11.000 metres. But through my microscope I can sense the cavalcade of similar momentary magic as well. I am an earthling like so many, seemingly animate and inanimate creatures of God abounding with colours and shapes. As time passes by I have experienced during my trips that all this is perishing. I do not want my children, my students, the explorers of the future not to be able to see this magic. I am presenting some fragments from the endless world and giving them to the spectators with love."
These are Igor Jeno Prokop's words about himself, his philosophy and his understanding of the world.

Site info
© 2006 FLASH | Valid: XHTML 1.1 / CSS / AA / 508

Tecniche

Fusingglass art
Oil paintings
Acry paintings
Graphics
Photos
Golden leaf
Metal forms

Premi

Special Mentions


Millicent Young, USA

Mario Artioli Tavani, Italy

Jianhui Ren, Singapore

Maria Holohan, UK

Zina Bercovici, Israel

Igor Eugene Prokop, Hungary

John Weiser, Austria


Biennale 2011 - Leonardo Award

DRAWINGS

1 - Premalatha Seshadri
2 - Maria Gaia Sindoni ex equo Igor Eugen Prokop
3 - Marcapiano ex equo Bruno Varini


Biennale 2011 - European Confederation of Art Critics Award

DRAWINGS

1 - Igor Eugen Prokop
2 - Marcapiano