The place and historical era he lives in are all-important to the painter András M. Novák. He is concerned with the Hungarian historical past and present, civilisation, big-city issues, and claims that colours and materials in our environment possess powerful contents of consciousness that change from era to era. Created from these colours and materials, his large-size canvases - often marred by decay and destruction - are affiliated with the genres and styles of arte povera and combine painting.

M. Novák's large, unscratched-canvas works of the past 6-8 years form the backbone of the present exhibition. The artist's concept called for this form and dimensions in which applied surfaces, basic alien/direct materials (corrugated cardboard, tar paper, printed canvas textile, fish skin, etc.) assume an important part.

The surfaces not covered by the large-sized canvases, 'wallpapers and tapestries', are given over to smaller complementary works. These pictures are not collages, picturettes or ephemeral dictates of style/fashion, neither are they objects of visual pleasure, but the (conceivably) inadequately coded projections of a professional painter, nearing sixty, who means business.