Gellérfi Pál
realist drawing artist, fine art and art theory writer
Born in Budapest in 1985, completed his studies at the Radnóti Miklós High School in Dunakeszi, and in 2004 he was admitted to the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Graphic Arts. He left university three years later.
Nowadays he's working as a freelance visual artist, primarily producing high quality drawings for foreign sales since 2022. In addition he's researching the connections between cultural development and environmental stress. His 3 volume book on this topic, titled Hybris will be published in 2023.
Between 2022 and 2016, he gave numerous lectures on art history, cultural history, and drawing art topics. His first two books were published as partial summaries of these topics in Hungarian: A rajzolás művészete (The Art of Drawing, ISBN: ISBN 978-615-81116-1-4) in 2019 and the Realizmus. - a valóság természete (Realism. - The nature of reality, ISBN:978-615-81116-0-7) in 2018.
Since 2014 he has been a member of the Mensa HungarIQa.
In 2012 he co-founded the TypoTrafik letterpress printing workshop.
In 2008 he was chosen among the top 5 artists in the Henkel Art.Award fine arts competition, and a year later he was among the finalists for the Strabag Art Award.
his art manner
Due to the realistic art style, the scale and ratio of his drawings are 1:1. This means that everything can be seen in the drawings in the same size as we would view the depicted things from a comfortable distance in real life. There is no magnification applied to the images - as is typical for example in naturalistic art.
He usually uses 0.3-0.5mm mechanical pencils on paper to create a lot of greys without 'smudging the graphite'. To make the perfect and suitable tones he has to draw them for the first time, without any mistakes, because erasers and the process of redrawing can damage the surface of the paper.
As a realist, he strives to capture the sight of reality perfectly and reproduce it in detail. He uses his own photos to help with the working process. At the same time, he never uses a projector, tablet, or the help of a computer during the creative process. Pál works only by hand while partially developing and transforming his tools himself. For example, to avoid smudging the drawing with his hand, he built a special drawing table with guiding equipment.
He no longer works on thematic commissions, he chooses the subject of the pictures himself and designs his compositions entirely himself.
exhibitions
2019 - The Tricks of the Magician, Patyolat - Budapest
2018 - Retrospective exhibition at VOKE József Attila Művelődési Központ, Dunakeszi
2016 - III. National Drawing Triennial - group exhibition, Salgótarján
2016 - Elysium - AmaTÁR exhibition space, Budapest
2009 - Henkel Art.Award 2008 - Baeckerstrasse 4 Galerie, Vienna