The lake of sorrow, 2020 , Acrylic, and oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm

Keresztesi's paintings create enchanting alternative realities by drawing the viewer into unknown, yet strangely familiar, microcosms. The works collide 2D and 3D as a reflection of visuals absorbed in everyday life and brought together in a surreal landscape. Dreamlike and sometimes eerie, they connect digital images, Internet surfaces, cybernated realities, informecials, pop and avant-garde culture in a stream of conciousness floating across the canvas.

The subjects can be traced back to European avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Surrealism. Keresztesi is combining these different artistic approaches with topics such as dreams, ecstasy, sin, death, passion or hallucinations. These surreal compositions are created by combining different techniques such as airbrush and masking in combination with traditional brush work. Although the paintings have a strong emphasis on the figurative, they cannot be categorized as photo-realistic.

Botond Keresztesi (b. 1987 Marosvásárhely, RO) is a Romanian/Hungarian artist working in painting, drawing and site-specific painting installations. Remixing references from Art History, popular culture, virtual space and every day life, his paintings crystalise into the fragmented realities of dream-like landscapes. Recent solo and group exhibitions have taken place at: Galerie Deroullion (Paris), Storage Capacité (Berlin), Damien & The Love Guru (Brussels), Kunstfort, Vijhuizen (Netherlands), Future Gallery (Berlin), Artkartell Project Space (Budapest), Labor Gallery (Budapest), Hungarian National Gallery (Budapest) and Schloss (Oslo).

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