GYURI HOLLÓSY

GYURI HOLLÓSY

Gyuri Hollosy’s artistic career spans over a period of 49 years. He was 12 when his passion for art was ignited by a Franciscan monk creating his art at a summer camp. When he was in his teens, his art education started specifically in sculpture as an apprentice to sculptor, Frank Varga in Detroit, Michigan during the summer months of 1963-66. He started his undergraduate studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, in Cleveland, Ohio from 1965-68 and then went to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio to study under David Hostetler where he received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1969. That summer he took an internship with Meyer John & Wengler Foundry to study bronze casting techniques for fine arts purposes and returned in the fall to begin his masters in sculpture and painting at Ohio University. He was then drafted and spent 5 ½ years in the military with the U.S. Coast Guard. After his military service he enrolled at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana to restart his graduate studies with Jules Struppeck and received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1977.

He launched his career as a teacher of fine arts at various universities and institutions; as sabbatical replacement from 1977-78 and as Interim Department Head from 1980-82 at Tulane University, as Assistant Professor at Washington University from 1982-85, and as Associate Professor at Bethany College, Lindsborg Kansas from 1985-88.

With his parents, turn-of-the-century Hungarian painters, Simon Hollósy and Csontváry Tivadar Kosztka, helped him to crystallize his choice and completely supported his commitment to be an artist. Since that time he has studied sculpture, ceramics, painting, and drawing, with sculpture becoming his favorite form of expression of all the mediums. He finds his ideas manifest themselves most strongly with sculpture where he can work not only with the three dimensions of a form but also have the tactile pleasure of developing that form. Sculpture to him is real, creating, and being inventive and innovative.

Throughout these years he has been on an endlessly fascinating path of exploration and to develop his approaches to the human figure, specifically the female figure. His sculpture has emerged and evolved into a strongly delicate, unique and personal style that is subconsciously influenced by his love and fascination for Medieval and Eastern armor. In lieu of solidity, his figures, made by overlapping small pieces of metal, are open and hollow and can be seen into. Whether a partial form or full figured, the viewer now has the opportunity to experience the juxtaposition of the inner and the outer, the interior and the exterior spaces, and how both contribute to the whole. He then used the overlapping sections as a way to create larger works with out the use of heavy machinery thus giving him the freedom to create outdoor works in bronze. Currently his is using mixed materials to accomplish his continued processes.

1956 Hungarian Revolution Memorial
Liberty Square Park,
Boston, MA

His sculptural technique has evolved through a number of changes. In his pieces, his main interest is the development of the human figure, and his desire is to give the form freedom of gestured expression. The figure has been a constant muse to him and evolved throughout the years from being very traditional to using classical representation and mixing it with abstract concepts and theories that I have come to experience throughout his journey. Michelangelo and Rodin were his early influences with Henry Moore and David Smith as my more contemporary visions, thoughts and approaches to form, space and line. Now his inspiration is life, people, the times past and present and passion.

It was not until he found himself, having been subconsciously influenced by his love and fascination for Medieval and Eastern armor, did his sculpture emerged and evolve into a strongly delicate, unique and personal style. In lieu of solidity, his figures, made by overlapping sections of metal, are open and hollow and can be seen into whether it is a partial or full figured form. The figure now has the opportunity to experience the juxtaposition of the inner and the outer, the interior and the exterior spaces, and how both contribute to the whole. With this approach he has ventured into a number of series to reinvent his concepts and voice with the figure. He has also found it to his advantage to use these overlapping sections as a way to create larger works with out the use of heavy machinery thus giving him the freedom to create outdoor works in cast bronze or more recently in cast resin mixs.

From 1988-2003 he was on instructor, Assistant Director and Program Coordinator for the Johnson Atelier Technical School of Sculpture’s Apprenticeship Program and Gallery Director for the Atelier’s Extension Gallery. While there he was able to use the foundry facilities for his personal work and experienced and learned other sculptural processes that helped his work progress. From this he develop a number of new series of work which have led him into my current conceptions in expressing the grace and fluidity of the dancing body; to portray a wide spectrum of human emotion through dance and developed a series work that explores his theories of sculpture without bases and having multi-positions to each composition


“Isaac Witkin portrait”	Adam, Eve and Us	EOS – Goddess of Dawn”

“I am intrigued with the interior and exterior space of the human form. With these sculptural forms, though stationary, I explore the kinetic rhythm and energy between abstracted figures in space, more specifically, the delicacy and boldness of motion.”

Inspired by the Baroque paintings of Tiepolo, the engaging concepts of Laszlo Maholy-Nagy's visions of motion and the openness of contemporary dance and its play with gravity, I seek to unpack the subtle, expressive gesture by showing how two or more figures symbiotically move - through water, air, across the ground - spiraling in, cantilevered out, yielding to gravity or emotion. In short, my subject is the interior landscapes that paired figures create


“Full Moon” - in one position	“Full Moon” - in inverted position
I am experimenting with figures not defined by a rigid top and a bottom. I like to ask these questions; what happens when the piece is tipped on its side and there is no single right side up? How is the dynamic between the two bodies changed? How does the re-positioning of the figures re-define the environment around them – bodies in air, in water, or earthbound? The challenge is not only to create two engaged bodies, but figures whose very engagement physical and emotional - changes when the sculpture is turned from one three-point base to another and another and to achieve a form that is never at rest. These sculptures can be in from 5 to 9 different positions, each as powerful as another within its given space. Some of the changes are great and some are subtle, but all are significant in the emotional response felt by the viewer.


Dancing Loons	Blue Wave
. For his personal work he is a recipient several grants and awards; the Herk van Tongeron Sculpture Award in 1999 from the Atlantic Foundation, a grant from the Ludwig Voglestein Foundation in 2003, Shelter Island, New York, and the Helen and George Segal Foundation in 2003, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Trenton Artist Workshop Award in 1999 Trenton, New Jersey, first place from Greensboro

“Kathy B,” Grounds For Sculpture , Mercerville, New Jersey

Artist League in 1999, Greensboro, North Carolina and honorable mentions from the Trenton City Museum in 2007 in Trenton, New Jersey.

During these years he has been awarded four major commissions; “Our Heritage” in the Heritage Building in Metairie, Louisiana from 1982-83, “Aspirations For Liberty” on Liberty Square in Boston, Massachusetts from 1986-89, “The Family” on Municipal Complex Center in Peoria, Arizona from 1990-92, the “Hungarian War Memorial” at Sunset Memorial Park, in North Olmstead, Ohio from 1986-2004. HeeHe was also awarded six minor commissions; Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty Memorial on Mindszenty Plaza in Cleveland, Ohio from 1975-77, Martin Luther King Memorial in the Martin Luther King Municipal Complex in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1979, “The Simple Monk” His Holiness the Dahlia Lama on the grounds of Peace Weavers Meditation Center, Bath, New York in 2002, “Rev. T. Dömötör” in the memorial courtyard at Loranttfy Care Center in Akron, Ohio in 2003, “Mary from Csoksijon,” in St. Ladislaus Church in New Brunswick, NJ in 2006 and the 56’ Hungarian Commemorative Memorial on Plum and Summerset in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2006.

After 25 years of academic service in December of 2003 he left the Johnson Atelier to continue his career as a self employed artist. He now devotes most of his time in the studio, by producing his art, sculpture and painting, and constantly pursuing the deepening quest of his artistic voice. In Octoabeer of 2005 he has been nominated at a Congressional Reception at the Rayburn House in Washington, D.C. to do the next National Memorial commemorating the 56 Hungarian Revolution in conjunction with the new Cold War Museum which is to be built in the future. He is also being considered by the Grounds For Sculpture’s Acquisition Committee in Hamilton, New Jersey to do a heroic size sculpture of sculptor Isaac Witkin in celebration of his life. And on October 5, 2008 he is slated to do retrospective exhibition “Hollosy; Work for the Past Forty Years” at The American Hungarian Cultural Center in New Brunswick, NJ.
Cardinal Joseph Memorial, Mindszenty Plaza, Cleveland, Ohio 1977		Pier de Soul

“The Family,” Municipal Complex “Our Heritage,” Heritage Building,

Center, Peoria, Arizona New Orleans , Louisiana
1992 1983

“Prince Arpad” 2004 “Saint Steven”

Hungarian War Memorial, Sunset Memorial Park, North Olmstead, Ohio, 1986 to 2004

“The Spirit of 56”

Commemorative memorial proposal of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution for

Washington, D.C.