The Right Rituals

József csató

Galleri Urbane is pleased to host the gallery’s second exclusive online exhibition, The Right Rituals, featuring the work of József Csató. 

Based in Budapest, the newly represented artist presents his first solo exhibition with an American gallery after exhibiting extensively across Hungary, Austria, and Germany. The Right Rituals is comprised of ten paintings, including works ranging from 2018 to many new works completed in recent weeks. With a distinct style that seemingly fuses figurative, still life, and narrative painting, Csató invites viewers into an imaginary universe containing a cast of whimsical characters.

Due to recent presales, the artist has provided the gallery with additional works not listed online. Contact us directly for a full list.

The paintings in this exhibition belong to an ongoing exploration of what Csató has coined his “sketchbook mythologies.”

Thousands of sketchbook drawings completed over the span of many years serve as source material and inspiration for these larger works on canvas. Various figures from these sketches come together in the artist’s painted compositions, creating a range of dynamic environments. Reoccurring forms, such as plants and vegetation, cartoon eyes, vases, smoke and vapor,  hands, and bones are found across the artist’s works and reference a range of sources including mythology, cinema, furniture design, and drawings made by the artist’s children. 

In their new contexts, these forms and figures assemble an imaginary world that sparks curiosity.  Further emphasis is achieved through the artist’s characteristic color palette and painted textures that point to playful realities. The artist likens these scenes to a range of rituals that are open to interpretation. While Csató avoids defining specific stories for his paintings, the artist finds joy in the rich narratives that viewers can weave even in the presence of unfamiliar imagery. The scene depicted in The Longest Yoga Pose (2019), for example, appears to catch a roughly biomorphic figure in the middle of performing a balancing act while adjacent to two distinctly different plant forms. A tongue-like form projects from the figure to land on a recognizable portrayal of a watermelon while it’s hand stabilizes a blue sphere. Through scenes like these, the artist’s inclination toward the fantastical is made clear.

Through the ten canvases in The Right Rituals, viewers are granted access to Csató’s limitless imagination. Given this access and the ability to construct one’s own perception of the artist’s otherworldly settings, viewers are also provided a chance to expand on their own imaginative potential. 

József Csató lives and works in Budapest, Hungary. He completed his studies in the painting department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts (MKE) in the class of Dóra Maurer in 2006. He is a three-time recipient of the honorable Gyula Derkovits Scholarship, receiving the award from 2013-2015. In 2013, he also received the prominent Esterhazy Prize, a national award for Hungarian artists. Csató completed an artist residency at Krinzinger Gallery (A) - AIR program in 2017 and his work has been exhibited in many group and solo exhibitions across Europe including Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf,  Nürnberg and Copenhagen. His works can be found in Hungarian and International private and institutional collections.