Marc Jancou Contemporary presents the first solo exhibition of David Horváth in Switzerland titled ‘I dream the light that I paint’. 

David Horváth (b. 1998) works primarily using oil paint in small and medium formats in which he explores the influences that have shaped his artistic practice to date, which include Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism and Symbolism. His paintings are displayed alongside a selection of smaller works on paper with the show presenting a cross-section of the artist’s practice. 

Drawing on the tradition of landscape painting, and with influences ranging from Corot and Constable to Simon Hollósy, Sándor Ziffer and Ferenczy Karoly who worked in Hungary around the turn of the twentieth century, landscape is a recurring theme in Horváth’s works. Working mostly from photographs of the surrounding countryside, his works exude a sense of solitude and yet, in their unnaturally warm tones, seem welcoming and inviting. Like his landscapes, Horváth’s take on isolation is bittersweet: Where he lives and works there aren’t many people to talk to he admits. This sense of seclusion however becomes the driving force to seek connections elsewhere, in the past and in nature. The light in his paintings, perhaps their most defining characteristic, despite being what first attracts him to a particular place, is a light encountered in his dreams first, and as such imbues the works with an imaginary quality: Like for many who have come before him, landscape for Horváth is the idealistic construct par excellence. 

In conversation with the category of landscape, for his show at the Saanen Vitrine, Horváth’s paintings are fittingly juxtaposed with three landscapes by Albrecht Schnider (b.1958 Switzerland) and the latter's signature takes on the natural world, measured, meticulous and precise, but perhaps similarly devoid of identifying characteristics, timeless and cryptic. 

Alongside the paintings, Horváth will also present a selection of drawings, simple, economical, most of them studies of the human figure, greatly evocative and yet put together through an extreme frugality of means. This body of work is juxtaposed with a series of drawings by Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987) dating from the 1950's. In Warhol's drawings figures in tight jeans are almost compressed onto the surface of the paper with the lightest of touches in his own seminal take of less-is-more. 

David Horváth (b. 1998, Romania) graduated from the Department of Painting at the University of Arts and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He currently lives and works in his hometown of Baia Mare, Romania.

The exhibition is on view 24/7 from Saanen train station’s platform and waiting room or by appointment. 

For additional information or appointments to visit the show please contact us at office@marcjancou.com

In the meantime you can also visit our recently published Online Viewing Rooms dedicated to the work of David Horváth, HIGHLIGHT: DAVID HORVÁTH: PAINTINGS and HIGHLIGHT: DAVID HORVÁTH: DRAWINGS. 

The Saanen Vitrine, Saanen train station, 3792, Switzerland