Peter Sudar

There’s something comforting about Peter Sudar’s intimate paintings, as if by resurrecting the best of the art-historical past, he has made room for quiet contemplation in its comparatively raucous present. Each of the eight small works in the Hungarian artist’s US solo debut features a person, often the artist, looking directly at the viewer. Sudar employs conceptual games—playfully borrowing postures from old masters (Velasquez and Rembrandt come to mind) while accessorizing his subjects with contemporary accoutrements (an Adidas top, a sports helmet)—but what makes one look, and keep looking, are not these ideas but his old-fashioned yet so-rare-it-feels-new painting technique. Sudar clearly enjoys the way in which an image is shaped as if out of chaos or nothingness. and his works leap casually over more recent decades of art history that have preferred concepts over pigment. His pictures’ content acknowledges this; for example, a bald “footballer” (soccer player) gazes into the night while wearing an emerald-green jersey set off by a white towel draped around his neck. The clothing recalls a court jester or a prince more readily than a sports figure, yet Sudar doesn’t push the issue. Each work is painted on found cardboard, the material’s rough edges neither self-consciously foregrounded nor hidden (one would need only to turn a picture over to discover its humble backing), and evidence of a loose gray and flesh-toned underpainting calmly exposes the procedural tension between control and chance. Yet, these are less intellectual props than incidental artifacts; in Sudar’s practice, the point is really to paint. The result is a refreshing antidote to the material excesses of late, in which slight conceptual underpinnings and dramatic gestures often take precedence over thoughtful balance.