Archetypes:
Divining the Nagual
New paintings, drawings and sculptures
by Ivan Kende
November 1 – December 7, 2012
Ivan Kende currently lives and works in Toledo, Ohio. Born in Hungary, he emigrated to the U.S. with his parents in late1956, during the final days of the Hungarian Revolution. A student of both the Artist League and Pratt Institute in New York, his original ambition was traditional figure and landscape painting.
In his most recent work Kende continues to delve further into iconic imagery and archetypes, exploring the mythical and the primordial nature that man is surrounded by. Past endeavors that seemed independent of each other, even to the artist, have found expression in two and three-dimensional media, as one unified series.
In the early 1990’s, Kende developed an original, acrylic painting style with precisely controlled texture and his signature Conte drawing series, which by their very nature, lured him away from a literal interpretation of the visible world. These minimalist, almost abstract works, pushed monochrome color theories to their limits and hinted at mythic content.