Scanning the Unknown
An Interview with Róbert Batykó

Patrick Tayler

Patrick Tayler: Your most recent paintings call to mind the “pop attitude” of your works from around 2015. The scanned packaging materials, however, seem to float this time in a more fictitious space, becoming part of striking, almost relief-like quasi-spatial formations. How do you relate to your previous series, and the return of a more object-oriented approach? What role did the 2023 collages — which fragment, shuffle and rearrange fast-food package design and frantic typography into absurd scenes — play in this process? 

Róbert Batykó: Indeed, the compositional principle of the collages made at the end of 2022 is echoed in the latest series, the difference being that while the paper collages were created entirely with analogue means, the visual plans of the paintings I made in the Netherlands were digitally elaborated and feature more of the almost hyper-realistic painterly solutions, eliciting a three-dimensional illusion. Those familiar with my series from before 2015 know that these visual effects have been present in my artistic toolbox from a very early stage. However, I have always felt an aversion towards the slavishness of hyper-realism; the pictorial elements in my paintings are almost always composed of expressive surfaces, and it is only from a distance or in small-scale reproductions that they appear differently. 

PT: Your paintings from the four-month residency in Haarlem are amazingly crisp. From a painterly-technical-optical-haptic point of view, what kind of contexts, constellations of sensations and logistical layer-menagerie captivated you during the process?

RB: I wanted to bring back painting techniques and compositional processes that I had used in the past and complement them with lessons learned in the past few years from the paint scraping machine. My most recent pieces are more strongly informed by the practice of visual sampling than ever before. Over the last 7–8 years, I have minimized my painterly toolbox quite a bit to evoke a sense of immateriality and eliminate the various gestural methods traditionally considered the norm. This seemed to be a logical decision while developing a post-digital painterly language of sorts, but I feel that I have charted this territory thoroughly enough and am ready to move on. When, in 2016, I painted a series inspired by various electronic glitches in a way that manifested as a kind of meta-painting practice through the eradication of the brushstroke, this particular approach to painterly language was really rare. However, in the last few years, post-digital painting has become one of the most dominant trends here. I felt the moment had come for me to seek new grounds, i.e. to develop a pictorial strategy in which I can reactivate the entire arsenal of my painterly tools and augment the interpretational angles of my images.

PT: How did the experience of the 2021 catalogue, which covers 15 years, change your perspective? What was it like to review the years thematically, and how did this retrospection affect the new series’ arc? Did you experience a shift in how you shape the parameters of your work?

RB: The book, which covers the last 17 years of my work, and the semi-retrospective museum exhibition that coincided with its publication were both significant milestones in 2021. I also turned forty, which made me want to look back and take stock. The book and the exhibition meant revisiting several pieces of my oeuvre. This obviously shaped or, if you like, prepared the character of the new series. Several painterly propositions have been outlined over the past 17 years, sometimes in rapid succession, and have not been revisited since. They are now returning in novel constellations, which presents, of course, a plethora of exciting experiments for me.

PT: In your exhibition with artists Twan Janssen and Han Schuil, the problem of packaging is distilled into intriguing visual puzzles. What focal points emerged from the dialogue between the works and the artists? What was the most exciting vein you discovered in each other’s work?

RB: The exhibition Package Deal at Horizonverticaal was a swell thematic expression of the non-indexical approach to painting that I myself represent. The idea was to find two Dutch artists who deal with the medium of painting and whose work could be connected to this concept. I have known Han Schuil and his artistic practice for more than 15 years. I consider him one of the most exciting Dutch artists, recognised in his home country and internationally. I was not familiar with Twan Janssen. However, his paintings, folded from the membrane of dried paint, were highly appealing and fitted perfectly into the pop-related universe highlighted by Package Deal. It was also crucial that the exhibitors cultivate a particular, if you like, experimental attitude to painting. The idea for the exhibition and the list of artists were conceived with Erik de Bree and Martijn Lucas Smit.

 APT: What’s next for you?

RB: I want to delve deeper into the visual world developed in the Netherlands, and I am interested in exploring further compositional possibilities based on visual sampling. At Studio Onvervalst, I started working on individual screenprints, which I enjoyed immensely; a larger-scale series will probably unfold in the near future. I have just realised how much freedom and experimentation there is in this technique, the imaging practice of which is quite close to how I have been making my paintings recently. I have also plans to expand and combine my collage series with screen prints. In February 2024, I will have a solo booth at Art Rotterdam 2024 with acb Gallery, where the series created in Haarlem will be shown in the Hungarian exhibition venue. And in May, I will be a resident at PLOP Artist Residency in London.

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Package Deal
Róbert Batykó, Twan Janssen, Han Schul
Horizonvertikaal,
19 November — 22 December 2023

Image Trap
Róbert Batykó Solo Exhibition
37PK, Platform voor Kunsten,
19 November — 16 December 2023