and photographed young information technology workers clustering together. The young technicians spoke different languages and came from diverse cultural backgrounds: Europeans, Middle Eastern, Africans and South Asians. The underlying concept of Kocsis’ exhibition is the portrayal of culturally disconnected persons and their desire to fit in our multicultural society. The human condition is still the prevalent context of Kocsis’ new body of paintings with an equally strong undertone of dystopia. Kocsis’ push against what was comfortable in previous work led her to develop the body of works with silent narratives unfolding for the most part in dense environments. A slight departure from the previous works is the use of colour influenced by Japanese animations. In the current works the colours are keyed up to an almost neon-like appearance, which at once reference Pop culture, but also the artificiality of the human experience. Kocsis’ compositions are based on photographs which she uses for the initial stages, but once the compositions are more or less established, the further progress is then guided by the painting process. In conclusion, the exhibition #techboyz is a visual investigation into the psychological aspects of the susceptible segment of young adult male workers trying to integrate into society. Kocsis’ paintings capture the psychological aspects of human existence and the human condition in a portrayal of vulnerability of male figures which are often in tight groupings and yet distanced from each other. The environments that the figures occupy are quite ambiguous and lack references to a concrete indoor or outdoor setting. They are intense and almost oppressive in their mass and the feeling of heaviness is compounded by intense artificial colours. Despite Kocsis’ emphasis on depictions of the human condition, the figuration is a theme of the exhibition. In contrast with the accurate modeling of human forms in her previous work, Kocsis’ figures in this exhibition are often slightly distorted and this fact contributes to the psychological tension between the viewer and the subject matter. Lubos Culen Curator Vernon Public Art Gallery
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