In his
collage imbued mixed media assemblages, Peter Horvath invokes an
improvisational jazz like visual cacophony, deconstructing and
recontextualizing imagery drawn from personal and found
materials.
Merging street ephemera, movie posters, photographs, ink,
acrylic and spray paint, his densely layered assemblage portraits reflect his
fascination with media consumption, cultural icons, urban decay and modern
day culture.
Influenced by the décollage of the 1960s
Nouveau Réalistes Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé, his work focuses on
deconstructing and recontextualising imagery, drawing from personal and found
materials and showing how life has itself become an assemblage of consumer
products and cultural reference.
Using imagery of friends,
family and celebrated public figures, Horvath obscures his central characters
with peeling, torn paper fragments and paint, frenetically surrounding a
stilled subject. "When I began making these works I considered how we
have become a society obsessed with aging, clinging to, and in pursuit of our
emblems of youth. The images of the people I choose for these portraits have
a strength and vitality - I place them among the wreckage of crumbling,
entropic elements - suggesting nothing lasts for
ever.”
Horvath describes his influences as “urban decay,
old adverts, old peeling billboards, and the flotsam and jetsam of consumer
culture.” Alongside this is his admiration of figures including Barbara Kruger,
Jenny Holzer, Francis Bacon, and the Berlin Dadaists Hannah Hoch and John
Heartfield.
His work is included in numerous permanent and
private collections internationally, including the Nion McEvoy collection,
the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s permanent collection, and the Whitney Museum of
American Art. He has exhibited in museums and galleries globally, including
the Rise Art Prize Exhibition (London), the Whitney Museum Of American Art‘s
Artport (NYC), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), the Musée
national des beaux-arts du Québec (Québec City) and FILE International
Festival (São Paulo, Brazil).
