After earning her degree in philosophy and political studies – an education that strongly influences her work to this day – Krisztina took a job developing photo negatives, where she first observed that the most interesting pictures tended to be those deformed by errors, bringing together mismatched visuals with unintentionally humorous results. Beginning at that point, while first taking her own photos amid the joyful commotion of Eastern Europe’s regime changes following the Soviet Era’s demise, Krisztina continually sought to discover contrasting sights that normally wouldn’t occupy the same frame of mind or photography.
“I really like mistakes, and use these mistakes in my photographs,” Krisztina says. “I find a kind of order in a chaotic situation.”
Traveling throughout Kosovo, Ukraine, Lithuania, and beyond on low-budget vision quests during the ‘90s, Krisztina honed her craft before returning home and becoming a founding member of Hungary’s Lumen Photography Foundation in 2002. Since then her subjects have ranged from Budapest’s 2006 riots (with her newborn baby’s face juxtaposed against police vehicles shrouded in tear gas) to neighbors in her tiny hometown celebrating a child’s birthday, which explains why a young girl is licking frosting from the breasts of a Barbie doll in one image.
Krisztina’s work is often initially observed as humorous before a second look invites deeper intrigue – and after learning the fact that none of her photos are altered digitally, and the subjects are generally not posing for the camera, viewers become more bewildered with every glance. Why is a mountain of crucifixes piled haphazardly in a Hungarian field? What are those satellite dishes doing scattered around a bucolic garden? Are those giant mountain goats really stomping on the rooftops of city buses? And why does this all seem so strange, anyway?
After having her photography exhibited in Brussels, Singapore, Seoul, and beyond, Krisztina was honored to be one of two Hungarian artists included in the Biennale of Sydney during this past spring, with works lining a room in the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now back in Budapest, Krisztina opened her new “Stocking Accidental” exhibit at the Brody Art Yard last week, showing several new images – a trio of elephants on the shore of Lake Balaton seem to be nothing new to the woman painting her nails in the foreground; a pair of drunken pub patrons are oblivious to the African animal heads hovering above them; and before what appears to be a giant oil spill on the floor of a grungy auto garage hosting a house party for hapless plebians stuck in the last century, a child plays a video game on a smart phone.
“Stocking Accidental” is on view through September 24 – check out Brody Art Yard’s Facebook page for more information.
