David Kovats Gallery – Barnabus Lakatos Gelleri – Arriving into something new
You could easily walk by the David Kovats Gallery, at the Drury Lane end of Long Acre, at least you could, if it wasn’t for the arresting art in this latest exhibition with works painted on 2m x 2m canvases.
Artist Barnabas Lakatos Gelleri, a queer artist, the son of a bishop, who became an artist to be free to express himself how he wished, through his art.
Although Barnabas is gay, and is part of a Queer Art collective, this seems almost incidental to his work and more a political statement. It is his choice of colour, an almost Gaugin palette, that first grabs the attention.
Bull under a Tree
All his work in this exhibition features bulls (Barnabas is Taurus) and snakes, (not for their biblical symbolism, but that for him, they represent many aspects of life including, knowledge, temptation, and sin)
Both the snakes and the bulls have a benign, almost Japanese anime quality, soft, feminine facial features, in an array of citrus colours of lemon, pink, orange, mauve and turquoise.
Catch the Snake
Barnabas works with the medium of acrylic with brush strokes, spray paint and Japanese ink, creating a layered almost 3D effect.
On two canvases the artist has deliberately left an area, one in the shape of a dagger, unpainted. Barnabas treats this as a deliberate pause, similar to a silence sometimes found in music, but here intended to pull the viewer up and allow for reflection on what has just been seen.
Fighting Bulls
David Kovats, the owner of the gallery is no less interesting. As a child at Kindergarten in Hungary, he and the other children could choose a recognisable symbol to act as their signature. Some chose an apple or a flower, a bee or a tree it was the child’s imagination that guided the choice, and these symbols would even be sewn into clothing. David’s father was an art dealer and so it was perhaps inevitable that David would choose a price tag as his symbol and his own artwork would be taken to his father’s gallery, complete with his signature price tag.
David became an art dealer and supporter of the arts, looking for new talent and bring them to a new audience. David opened a gallery in Hungary and then worked at Sotheby’s before opening his own gallery in London’s Covent Gallery.
Sadly, because of the restrictions of Covid, Barnabas has not been able to visit his very first exhibition, but if you are walking through Covent Garden you should certainly make a detour, as I suspect that this particular artist is going to come to prominence, and this is an opportunity to see him at the start of his career.
The exhibition is open all week including weekends but must close on October 3rd
For more information:
David Kovats Gallery
80 Long Acre, Covent Garden
London, WC2E 9NG
https://davidkovats.com/