Csaba Markus
Encyclopedia
Csaba Markus is an artist
, painter
, sculptor and publisher. As an artist he primarily works in the field of printmaking
, with a particular focus on serigraphy. His work also includes oil painting, drawing, photography and sculpture.
, Hungary
. His mother is Szollos Erzsebet. His childhood in Hungary, where he frequented museums, is an influence on his work. He is also influenced by avant-garde art and abstraction
. He became increasingly frustrated with teachers and the confines of communism in his native Hungary. Markus began his career as a sculptor. At the age of fourteen, he and his work were featured on international public television.
He began to work with traditional printmaking, including etching
, around 1979. He often uses two or three copper plates when creating his etchings, and up to 100 colors when printing his serigraphs. He mixes drypoint
, aquatint
and soft-ground etching techniques with graphite pencil. Csaba Markus is closely associated with the sfumato
technique.
His oil painting begins with a grisaille in a gray or sepia, as a monochromatic version of the finished piece. When this is dry, the Markus begins to add layers of glaze in different colors, letting each layer dry before adding the next one. Since the layers are all somewhat transparent, the result is a combination of the colors, creating a final hue as if the painter has simply mixed the colors. His painting is painted using very thin and transparent layers of paint, around the eyes and mouth as many as 30 layers.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, sculptor and publisher. As an artist he primarily works in the field of printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, with a particular focus on serigraphy. His work also includes oil painting, drawing, photography and sculpture.
Life and work
Markus was born in 1953 in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. His mother is Szollos Erzsebet. His childhood in Hungary, where he frequented museums, is an influence on his work. He is also influenced by avant-garde art and abstraction
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. He became increasingly frustrated with teachers and the confines of communism in his native Hungary. Markus began his career as a sculptor. At the age of fourteen, he and his work were featured on international public television.
He began to work with traditional printmaking, including etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
, around 1979. He often uses two or three copper plates when creating his etchings, and up to 100 colors when printing his serigraphs. He mixes drypoint
Drypoint
Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. Traditionally the plate was copper, but now acetate, zinc, or plexiglas are also commonly used...
, aquatint
Aquatint
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...
and soft-ground etching techniques with graphite pencil. Csaba Markus is closely associated with the sfumato
Sfumato
Sfumato is one of the four canonical painting modes of the Renaissance .The most prominent practitioner of sfumato was Leonardo da Vinci, and his famous painting of the Mona Lisa exhibits the technique. Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or...
technique.
His oil painting begins with a grisaille in a gray or sepia, as a monochromatic version of the finished piece. When this is dry, the Markus begins to add layers of glaze in different colors, letting each layer dry before adding the next one. Since the layers are all somewhat transparent, the result is a combination of the colors, creating a final hue as if the painter has simply mixed the colors. His painting is painted using very thin and transparent layers of paint, around the eyes and mouth as many as 30 layers.
Publishing
Markus's publishing company Dreaming Muse was founded in 2004.- Gems and Rhapsodies, 2004, ISBN 0-9746635-0-6
- Artist and Muses, 2007, ISBN 0-9746635-1-4
- Artist & Muses, Silk Edition, 2008, ISBN 0-9746635-2-2