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Until 14th May: Fri-Sun 2-6pm
Two and a half years ago I was standing outside the small art gallery and studio where I work, waxing the wooden doors, when an elderly gentleman stopped and started chatting to me. His name was Joszef Franko, and as he clearly liked to talk, and he had a wonderful face, I decided, after about the fourth long doorstep exchange, to ask him whether he would come and ‘sit’ for me, so that I could draw him while we talked.
This was the start of a relationship between Joszef and the FOVEA studio and gallery that has now lasted two and a half years. During that time Joszef has dropped in most days. He has watched exhibitions going up and coming down, talked to visiting and exhibiting artists, hovered on the edge of workshops, and on occasion, stepped into my shoes and stewarded the space for me when I have had to rush away for some reason. After about a year, he started coming to openings, and he has become such a well known presence in the gallery, that it is his absence that is remarked on by those who spend any time here.
Hungarian by birth, Joszef speaks English in an eccentric, but highly accessible way. He likes to read palms, and most of all he enjoys talking to people. He always looks at the work on show-even when he has seen it ten times in the last ten days, he will pause and look at it again, often reiterating whatever judgement he has already formed, but sometimes modifying his opinion, one way or the other. An enemy of hypocrisy, he risks offending those who show here by being very honest about his likes and dislikes. Black and ‘dark’ are anathema to this man, who likes bright pastel colours, a contradiction in terms, and yet a description which has now begun to make sense to me.
On several occasions I have encouraged Joszef to take up painting, but have always been met with ‘I tried it once’ (and the picture is delightful), and ‘I can’t be bothered’, ‘Why should I?’ In December something shifted. A piece fitted in or a bit dropped out, Jozsef himself cannot explain what catalysed his plunge into painting, but he started and has been unable to stop ever since. He now has a collection of over 150 paintings in his home, and this exhibition is the result.
Joszef’s explanation is that he doesn’t know where it comes from, that he can only suppose that his immersion in visual art, through his involvement with the gallery community, has somehow unlocked his urge to create, giving him the confidence to allow this stream of visual activity to flow.
He has become a familiar in the charity shops of Harrow and Uxbridge, where he scouts for second-hand frames, with or without images, and buys them in job lots. The Pound Shop supplies large pots of household paint. His methods have been evolving, through experimentation, over the last few months. Initially he painted onto a white ground. Now he lays down a coloured ground and then at times another textured hue over that prior to proceeding with the smaller marks. Sometimes he will paint directly onto the surface of a glass frame, and sometimes the painting on the glass is superimposed onto the painting underneath. If a found image (be it ‘old master’ or anonymous original) has something to recommend it, Joszef will simply ‘touch it up’, or add to it.
Joszef’s paintings are good-they have integrity and certainty. He is often dissatisfied, and will work and rework until it seems right. What do these terms mean? Integrity/soul/certainty/right? It works artsits say…what does that mean?
The fact is we don’t know what it means and that is the amazing mystery-there is no formula. Skill, knowledge, passion, interest, confidence, a willingness to stray to the edge; these are all ingredients. The way in which they combine is unique to each individual.
The creative explosion that has taken place around the corner in Jozsef’s house is a wonderful example of gallery education at it’s best. Without any agenda, targets, timescales or criteria, Joszef Franko, painter, has come into being.......
Fri-Sun 2-6pm or by appointment.
T: 020 8357 2924 or email: info@foveagallery.co.uk
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