Artist
Boglárka Éva Zellei
Boglárka Éva Zellei is a photographer and visual artist based in Budapest, Hungary. Her work is concerned with contemporary spirituality in a culture where religion is often misinterpreted and overused. Her aim is to reveal more connections within contemporary culture by exploring deeper desires of a person or communities. For her, the process of creation is also a source of spiritual growth, through processing and pushing her limits, and above all, an important space for dialogue.
Zellei studied Photography at the University of Kaposvár and received her MA in Photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest in 2017. In 2016 she studied as a visiting student at Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Besides Hungary, she was represented in exhibitions in Berlin, London, Vienna, Kanazawa, Breda, and Monopoli. Her works were published in several magazines, for example on the cover of HANT Magazine für Fotografie, in The Guardian, Spiegel Online, IMA Magazine (JP) and C41 Magazine (IT).
In 2020 she earned the 3-year scholarship of Hungarian Academy of Fine Art. In 2018 the artist was a New East Photo Prize finalist, a Prix Pictet nominee, and earned the Pécsi József Photography Grant. She won the third prize of Different Worlds competition in 2017.
Attemts at inheriting
I am a young East-Central European Christian woman artist. For me, this series over the years is an experimental field where I can always redefine my relationship with my identity. I am collecting impressions of my cultural environment and heritage which are shaping this bittersweet connection. Born in the years after the fall of communism, I carry with me the chaotic religiosity of that period. After becoming disappointed in traditional religiosity, I continued this spiritual quest alone, which also became an artistic one. Spirituality and creation are intertwined in my personal life and also my in connection with society, I visualize the dialogue of these areas through the pictures. These unique local images and churches tell stories about the history and bizarre yet rich religious culture of this post-communist region. Sometimes I discover my own inner world in them, just as my self-portraits reflect my spiritual journey. Through the act of image-making and performative gestures, I seek to reinterpret this worn-out heritage.
In her long-term works, Zsuzsa Darab explores personal themes often combining conceptual and experimental solutions. Deeply engaged with the subject of observation, she presents her questions and experience as a visual story. Often, she takes her own life as a starting point in dealing with the ‘first-life panic’ of her generation and the psychological processes of coming to terms with lived experience.
Balázs Fromm’s projects unfold against the backdrop of Middle and Eastern European countries where democracies are under pressure from the threat of impending war, rising nationalism and migration. He demonstrates an interest in the human condition, which is revealed through a mix of tender portraits and impressions of direct surroundings, resulting in a palette of atmospheric images expressing the challenges of a region faced with an uncertain future.
As an active photojournalist, Noémi Napsugár Melegh is able to step away from the ‘fly on the wall’ role of an impartial author we most often expect from press photography. The atmosphere of trust that she is able to create is palpable in her images, and although she is at the beginning of her photographic career, her images show a freshness of creativity that has the potential to be seeking new experimental paths.
The exceptional characteristics of Róbert Nunkovics’ work were evident from the very beginning of his praxis: he uses the tools of documentary photography to present topics related to his interest in authentic artistic expressions, typically outsider or vernacular and rooted in street art, graffiti culture and everyday life. The focus of his sensitive multimedia projects is usually a remarkable figure or a special place with a little-known story.
Boglárka Zellei combines the spiritual journey with the creative process and her artistic practice is guided by the experience and projection of spiritual processes. With her photographic-based installation works, she invites the viewer into an intense dialogue, drawing attention to fundamental questions of faith, while also bringing to the surface themes of spiritual resilience, as well as notions of judgement and acceptance.