karoly
veress sculptor
Karoly Veress (Dalnoki Veress, Karoly) was born in 1935 in the rugged mountains of Transylvania. The upheaval of the Second World War forced him to recognize the fragility of his environment and the system that shaped it. In his youth he exhibited a natural talent for literature and poetry, his first artistic expression.
In the turbulent 1950s, Veress studied literature at the University of Budapest. The chaos and ruins of postwar Hungary and the subsequent resentment of Soviet occupation, led to anger within the Hungarian psyche which erupted into the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Veress's participation in the revolution ended in tragedy, as he experienced the second major upheaval in his life - the necessity to leave Hungary.
Veress fled to the Netherlands, where he continued his studies in Arts at the University of Leiden. In 1966 he married Margot Dooijes, and in the stability and peace he found, he discovered his love for sculpting. Veress once wrote, "I am put on the earth in the middle of creation. My life is a flight into the protection of others, and a flight back to loneliness to see if I still exist. I exist in making sculptures." For Veress sculpting was more than a discovery; it was an explosion of exploring human emotions, not through words, but through form.
One of the most important developments in Veress's professional career was his meeting with the great Dutch art critic and curator Pieter Leffelaar. Leffelaar became his mentor, and until his death in 1978, was an important force in the development of Veress's career. Leffelaar once said, "Veress's art does not mimic reality, it goes beyond, where imitation stops."
In the 1970s, Veress became well known in the Netherlands and much of Europe. His work graces many private and corporate collections, including that of Her Majesty Queen Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands, and those of the Dutch and German governments. In 1978, Willem Sandberg, the famous former director of the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam, encouraged him to spread his wings to North America.
Veress shares his time between the Niagara region in Canada, and a small village in Hungary, from where his art has continued to grow and develop. From these peaceful spots his work reaches out across the world.
Veress emphasizes that his work not only reflects the time of its creation, but must also have a timeless truth. Sculpture should not merely be a translation of the human experience into form, but should also explore the aspect of the human psyche that is detached from everyday life - from actuality. Art is truthful and authentic when it gives the moment of its creation a place in the universal order. His work, although prompted by personal experiences, spontaneously decouples from the present and evolves into a deeper, almost generically human expression. What Veress expresses in his sculpture relates to all of us, and transcends generations, cultures, and races - this is what gives Veress's work a timeless truth.
Critical Reviews:
"One of his most recent works, Sisyphus [1997], is a beautiful sculpture. The word "beautiful" does not refer to the artist as a sentimentalist. He does not try to be either a moralist, or a teacher. A sensitive thinker? Yes, indeed, Veress' philosopy relates to Camus' theory on absurd. At least, I feel this. Here is the sculpture. It is monumental, simple, and noble . . . Looking at it, some might ask: what kept Sisyphus motivated to see the sunlight? Karoly Veress tells us by his grand work of art that through the full acceptance of the absurd we can still reject death by loving life and effort. That is the approach Sisyphus took. Instead of focusing on keeping the rock steady once he got to the top, he learned to love the simple motion of his action. This is the meaning of Sisyphus' endeavor. This idea echoes in the message of Veress' sculpture: the love of life..."
Rozsa Dancs
"His work is strongly influenced by the post-cubistic European sculpture of Brancusi, Lipshitz and Moore. Veress works with smoothly flowing curvilinear lines, organic bonelike shapes and overlapping concave and convex polished surfaces. His work has dynamic strength and massiveness even for small pieces and his sense of volume and internal space is accomplished through what can be described as a balance of opposites, that draws directly from the interaction of two bodies.
His work is strongly style conscious and might be considered proudly derivative of modern European biomorphic sculpture. ‘If you try to give a definition in sculpture you must be as precise as the written word'."
Brooks Joyner
"Karoly Veress seeks and finds visualized solutions to human emotions and knows, in spite of his choice of cool materials like bronze and marble, how to give them a warm feeling. His ambition to create those feelings aims at abstraction as the most objective way to communicate. Furthermore, his strength lies in the fact that the relationship with visible reality never totally disappears. His intellectual understanding and emotional feelings are balanced. The works are designed and finished with the utmost care for this purpose.
The deep emotions he likes to visualize are perfectly fit to be realized in monumental sizes. For example his sculpture, ‘Psalm 151', brings to mind Rotterdam's sculpture 'Damaged City', by Zadkine. It is clear that ‘Psalm 151' would gain, as Zadkine's work, an even more dramatic character in a monumental size. But even in its smaller size the work has tension and visual power enough to force one to think, to create the inner quiet to do so, and to evoke the feeling that is called human."
Peter de Rijke
"He now speaks a universal language of such delightful beauty that one often gets very moved looking at his sculptures. Don't ask how much is at stake nor how he persevered to give these bronzes (as well as magnificent marbles and plaster) their skins as smooth as mirrors. It could only be the artist's drive and aspirations in his search for perfection.
Veress is a man prepared to do the utmost, not only technically but more importantly as an artist. The striking line play of his sculptures excels by refined forms staying close to nature and by folding and weaving their continuous movements and harmonies. The often eye-delighting play of liquid concaves and convexes that give his figures all kinds of reflections is his signature and is characteristic of his personality."
Pieter v.d. Bosch