CSILLA BARTUS
Interdisciplinary Artist Graphic designer
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PERSONAL DATA
tel: +36 30 675 1207 (HU) +40 751 667 700 (RO) mail: csillabartus@yahoo.com
Date and place of birth: 1996, Simleu Silvaniei (Szilagysomlyo), Romania
Double nationality: romanian, hungarian
_EDUCATION
2021
Online school: TM Cult Contrasens Cultural Association in collaboration with Art Encounters Biennale / Cultural mediation and communication / Art criticism and journalism
2018 – 2020 MA diploma, Fine art, Graphic art
University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2014 – 2017 BA diploma, Fine art, Graphic art University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2014 – 2020
BA & MA Degree in Art Education psychopedagogy University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2012 – 2014 Fine art with graphics major ‘Ioan Sima’ Art college, Zalau, Ro 2010 – 2012 Vocational - Languages ‘Gheorghe Sincai’ Vocational college, Zalau, Ro
_EXHIBITIONS
2022
‘cozzzmonautica - Forest of Antennae’ group exhibition Indecis Artist Run Space, Timisoara, Ro 2022
‘Flux_UX : (User Experience)’ artist insert in IDEA society + culture magazine 2022
‘At the edge of the world’ group exhibition; Art Encounters, Timisoara, Ro
2021
‘Probably Romania 3.0’ - Galeria Posibila Polycopies book fair, Paris, France 2021 ‘Cosmic connections’ group exhibition @ Cosmic House & Studio Cultural Cecalaca, Ro 2021
‘Reminder to breathe’ Off-program solo installation @ OFF Biennale, during Aerocene: Museo Aero Solar project, Budapest, Hu 2020
Collection of prints from 2014 – 2017 featured in Korunk magazine ‘forum, culture and science’ - printed *https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XWUVfAiZMQXtBg suoO9IuuvZ4UPREqTL/view
2020
‘Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe’ online 3D exhibition MA project @ UAD’s, Ro 2020
Show off 3 group exhibition
@ Matca Artspace, Cluj-Napoca, Ro
2020
‘Yet means at this time, or up to now, or at a future time’ group exhibition
@ Matca Artspace / Cluj-Napoca, Ro
2020
‘Open Window’ artwork featured in digital zine @QuarantineZine (online edition)
2020 ‘Blockages and Restrictions’ featured online @ 1111 Gallery, Budapest, Hu
2019 ‘FLUX’ artist book; a meditation on time, space, change within digital fluxus Bucharest, Ro
2019 ‘Bandwidth’ group exhibition @ DH5 gallery, Linz, Austria
2019 ‘Bandwidth’ group exhibition @ Galeria Posibila, Bucharest, Ro 2019 Inner worlds group exhibition @Mumush 0.0 Festival, Tirgu Mures, Ro
2019 ‘Brainst@rm’ solo exhibition @ Matthias House Gallery Cluj-Napoca, Ro 2018 Visualia Festival group exhibition @ House for Culture, Cluj-N, Ro
2018
PPM#3 xerox art show group exhibition @ Aici – Acolo Pop Up gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Ro
2018 ‘mintro’ - mind’s intro graduation project group exhibition @ Expo Transilvania, Cluj-N, Ro
_CURRICULUM VITAE_
_GRANT / INTERNSHIP / RESIDENCY
2022 NKA (National Cultural Fund of Hungary ) grant for artistic production Budapest, Hu
2019 - 2021
Erasmus+ Internships
@ Muto group (artist run space), Budapest, Hu
@ FKSE – Association of young artist’s studios Budapest, Hu
2019 / Grant for study abroad in Braunschweig, DE –cancelled because of the pandemic
2019
“Bandwidth” Art Residency by Sounds like a book and Galeria Posibila @ Sona Village, Brasov County, Ro
2018
Erasmus+ Internship @ Galeria Plan B, Berlin, De assistance, art handling, archive
Part of rebuilding the artwork ‘GALAXY’ by Horia Damian for Art Basel/ Berlin, DE
2014 Workshop two weeks workshop in photography and realalization of two short video work @Muze fest, Muzeum at Zalau city, Ro
2013 Participant
National Art Olympics, Slatina, Ro Fine art/ Graphics
_CULTURAL WORK EXPERIENCES
2022 Volunterr UH fest, Budapest, Hu 2022 –Assistance Art Quarter Budapest, Budapest, Hu 2021 –Editor; co-organizor, graphician, contributor Kodzine – zine, Budapest, Hu
2021 Editor; Issue coordinator
ARTSENSE #5 – Art and Technology newspaper for Art Encounters Biennale Contrasens Cultural Association, Timisoara, Ro 2021 Assistance OFF Biennale, Budapest, Hu 2020 Assistant Visual Arts Programme Coordination Paintbrush Factory, Cluj-Napoca, Ro (2 months)
2019 – 2020
Artist Talks
Organising talks with artists, gallerists and curators University of Art & Design, Cluj-Napoca, Ro
2019 – 2020
Co-organizor; junior cultural manager and program coordinator @ Mumush 0.0 and 1.0 Festival Mures county, Ro
2017 Kaleidoscop Art festival Co-organizor; University of Art and design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 2014 – 2017 ASUAD member Student Association of the University of Art & Design, Cluj-Napoca, Ro
_WORKSHOP leading
2022
Postcard making workshop printing techniques and collage
@ Mumush 0.0 Festival for Arts& Music / Ro
2022
‘Future Perfect’ – Architecture Festival Speculative workshop on building future scenarios mutations of the city from the socialist era through capitalism, from the perspectives of: the architect, the builder, the building, the space and the inhabitants; Dunaujvaros, Hu
2021
Sketching & drawing workshop psychological drawing exercises
@Mumush 1.0 Festival/ Ro 2021
‘Plastic World Fantasy’ & ‘Plastic bag Print’ (miniature figurines and landscape elements made from plastic bag through printing and sculpting)
@OFF Biennale: AEROCENE: Museo Aero Solar, Budapest, Hu
2019 Technique of marbling and DIY merch making printing on textile
@ Mumush 0.0 Arts&Music Festival/ Ro 2018 Presentation traditional printing techniques
@ University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca, Ro 2017 Proszto Print (teaching an alternative printing technique with milk boxes/ inverted version of linocut printing) @ Quint Studio, Budapest, Hu
2015
Bookbinding workshop with dr.uni.prof. Cristian Opris
@ ‘Kaleidoscop’ Arts Festival, Cluj-Napoca, Ro
_DESIGN EXPERIENCES
2018 –
Freelance graphic designer
Artistic projects/ clients/ collaborations:
IXIR - potion (beer) label (artistic collaboration) Art Quarter Budapest (exhibition event, music event, website)
EXILES experimental music label (event cover) Ganho @Letminimum Bazis (experimental music event cover and projection)
Architecture Uncomfortable (exhibition material) Arcana Art Collection (exhibition catalogue) Kodzine (collective - zine, workshops)
OFF Biennale (design mutations)
Muto Group (artist run space)
Hexable (start-up) Mumush arts & music festival, Ro Éclipse Totale (music event cover) Kolorado arts & music festival, Hu
2022 Assistant graphic designer/artist Film Production – Silver Entertainmnent – HALO 2
2020–2021
Art direction; graphic design; one-time stage designer Hexable start–up, Budapest, Hu 2019 ‘FLUX’ – published artist book
2018 Graphic designer
Erasmus+ internship
@ VAN Graphic Design Studio, Budapest, Hu 2017 Junior graphic designer Erasmus+ internship
@ QUINT STUDIO, Budapest, Hu (An award-winning international design studio, the Netherlands, Hungary, USA and UAE.)
2016 Junior graphic designer
Erasmus+ internship
@ LAKI ESZTER graphic designer, Flatlab, Budapest, Hu
(Merging manuality and graphic design, printed and digital matter and the most basics of identity branding and package design)
Artist Statement
CSILLA BARTUS
PORTFOLIO
Bartus Csilla (b. 1996) lives in Budapest and works both in Romania and in Hungary. Graduated from the University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca from the Faculty of fine arts, graphic department with a minor in psychopedagogy. Meanwhile she gathered some skills in digital art and graphic design, and now opened more for the idea of spatial design and installations. Interdisciplinarity and experiments are the core of her rhizomatic processes. Has a big fascination on how everything is interrelated and how different parts can resonate, searching for anchor points to connect them in ways to reveal, to preserve, and to create a dialogue, or a story. She mainly ob serves and explores what it means to be human and/or non-human in the _andscapes, a term used by her to summarise the multitude of scapes that are well known, speculative and yet unknown for us. Meaning the principal sources for her poetic - techno - (pseudo)scientific works. Observing and critically reflecting on the tension between technology, nature and humans. Everyday life happenings, random associations and constellation are also used as raw material in her works. Intimacy is explored in the contexts of personal memories in relation to anything that surrounds her.
_ANDSCAPES*
art as media
The works shown in the exhibition ‘At the edge of the world’, are based on the concept of Pseudopodia. Pseudopods are a temporary arm-like projection, like a ghost arm that helps the cell membrane in motility and ingestion. The association between pseudopods ohenomena and the project reveals how the the concept goes in several directions, becoming a fluid entity, kepes of transformations, recompositioning, recontextualizing, reforming. Due to its fluidity in exhibiting and melting, reading or interpreting the message can also migrate or transform.
The installation is assembled from several small pieces that together make up a microcosm, created accordingly to a post-apocalyptic scenario, in which we assume that the earth melt down partially, and we are left in a deserted landscape filled with capitalist remains, toxic air, etc.
Responding to the word “edge”, I have created objects, installations and Environments (ambients). Atmospheres that balance the real and unreal; ... “what is” - what we have as materials and recent facts with which we can work and “what If “ - what we can do out of them, how they are interrelated, as well as how it is possible to play with their combination to result in a paradox in the way they are perceived and understood.
The starting point of the installation was a fireplace found near the water, in which I noticed a foreign body, similar to a slippery animal or an indefinite, amorphous organ. At a closer examination, it turned out to be contrary to what I thought, it was a hard plastic. This experience excited me and scared me at the same time, but it triggered a curiosity about this material and its potential in Storytelling. Studying this perfectly integrated plastic in nature, I began to play with it, remodelling it and placing it in different environments, and situations to camouflage it in nature.
I consciously chose my materials to strengthen the contrast between organic and synthetic for creating a twist in recognition. The materials used were: melted plastic, resin, fiberglass, polyester, metal and, on the other hand organic materials: stones, shells, sand, coal and seeds.
* my new terminology for speculative landscapes created by imagining future scenarios
I try to reach holographic and transparent effects, construction materials and technological waste, melted plastic fossils,
Within the exhibition are presented other assamblages made with molten plastics , and a series of photographs from 2018 to 2022, a progress of about 4 years. The photos collected being about objects or phenomena found on the ground or in the sky. They have catched my attention, because at first glance they seemed to be something but in fact they weren’t, but they were something else, like a modernist way of seeing ufos.
When I found this foreign body in the fireplace I did not had a concrete idea to follow, more of associations with scientifical bodies, melting of anatomical and chemical compositions. It was a poetic piece.
A more concrete scientific theory for this project would be a turning point from 2020, when I moved to Budapest. During my assistance at Off biennale I have met the group of Xrto Realm artists and theoreticians. Their curatorial exhibition showed at the biennale was entitled Aclim! Agency for Climate Imaginary, they presented artworks based on the research of the 7 artists with different approaches on the crisis of climate change, the post-human, and theories that criticize anthropocentrism in contemporary thinking. The group has also published a book entitled Extrodaesia, an encyclopedia to a post-anthropocentric world, this being a bilingual multidisciplinary encyclopedia that includes theoretical articles with ecological thematics and new realistic theoretical inputs with poems in prose and visual works of art that approximates the anthropocene landscapes. They were also organizing reading sessions and workshops.
The project is combined with my own history, through my beliefs and opinions on ecological, economic and political problems. Also, personal and collective fears and speculation about what could be the result of such catastrophes we have experienced since 2019: climate crisis, Covid pandemic and the recent Russian-Ukrainian war. Reflects also on how we deal with constant problems like consumerism, capitalism, the collapse of the economy and new technological problems causing us burn-outs and not finding the way out of a not functioning system, and of a not sustainable way of living and consuming.
I.
‘At the edge of the world’ (exhibition view), Art Encounters, Timisoara, Romania 2022, prints, molten plastic, resin, glass fiber, sand, charcoal, metallic tool, foam, stones, shell, plexiglass
Fog cutter sword (detail)
2022, prints with stills from a video work, molten plastic, resin, glass fiber
Impossibility
to defeat the uncertainty
Fan (detail)
2022, print, molten plastic assamblage, resin and glass fiber
Symbol for circulation
Merging (detail)
2022, photo print, molten plastic assambled, stones on foam with mechanical hands
Installation made to reflect on construction sites.
Merging 2D print with 3D objects creating a break-through.
Where are you? (detail)
2022, print of a screenshot and flexiglass
Revolut was asking for a selfie for identification, but my phone’s camera was broken making the task uncompleted.
Tap to reveal (detail) 2022, print and flexiglass impossible task, screen is not functional.
Reflecting on current Disasters (detail)
2022, charcoal, molten plastic, photo printed
During the process of creation the Ukrainian-Russian war this reflects on the war.
Capitalist archaeology (detail)
2017-2022, molten plastic, stones turned into resin, stones in sand
Unwater detail) 2022, shell and resin
Part of building up an imagined micro world , with it’s own creatures and tools. Undrinkable water holder, tool for dehydration.
‘Pseudopodia II’
2022, different pieces of molten plastic, resin, shells
Continuing on the Pseudopodia project.
Remixing leftovers.
Composing the unworldly creatures.
‘Pseudopodia I’ 2022, resin and glass fiber
‘Icy Veins’ 2022, resin and glass fiber
II. INTROSPECTION
‘Not alone’
2017, offset on paper, 20x30cm
‘Anger book - fight or flight’ 2020, A5, diary, psychological drawing exercise
Every drawing is a result of a few seconds in which I put all my anger on paper with a pen. One powerful, silent, little agressive act that gives releif. It is catharctic with a therapeutic effect from the fight or flight psychology method to confront anger.
Method: when you feel angry, grab a marker pen, gather in mind all the anger, formulate why you feel it, and then focused, with one outburst, with all your power, channel it through the act of drawing. Now, have a few deep breaths and enjoy the rest of your day.
‘Tension release exercises’ ‘Escaping the cube’ 2020, A5, diary, drawings
Installation for rest composed by a yoga mat, a book and a pillow on which instructions guide those who’s posture is incorrect, because they suffer from anxiety, stress, causing them pain. This small exercise opens the thorax (heart and lungs), streches the abdomen and relaxes the neck and shoulders, all for a better oxygen circulation, full relaxation and meditation adn all in the name and for the sake of art and well-being.
‘Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe’ 2020, installation, video performance
‘Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe’ 2020, stills from the video performing with the installation
2020, design and instruction on the pillow
Study for movement 2021, graphite on paper
‘space between praying hands’
2022, cement and porcelain powder mixture dried between my hands heat
III. DIGITAL FLUX >>>>>>>>>>
‘social_distancing’ 2020, digital, photography, glyphs
In times of crisis, we are forced to change the way we used to function and exist in the world. In that situation, what remains for us to do?
We are frozen and become numb, like pigeons captured in this picture. A higher order regulates us, imposes certain laws about what we can and cannot do. These birds are also symbolic of persistence, harmony, well-being, and forgiveness but freedom in this case.
‘Digital Ruin + pseudopodia’
2022, self-adhesive silver foil cutted with plotter cutter on plastic sheet + translucent digital print experiment on aluminium foil
Imagining future scenarios and Resilience practices
The project embodies the concept of a ‹ pseudopodia ›, which is an amoeboid cell that moves with the help of ghost arm-like projections. Pseudopodia represents transformation through move ment, and through its membrane I connect the different flowing ‹ arm-ideas › to reflect on the problems of change, damage and adaptability within biodiversity and the Anthropocene.
Bringing together the power of imagination and reality based information to use it as a tool for critical speculative practice, in which recent happenings are examined and questions are asked regarding the future of humanity, of climate and of the ecosystem.
The Movile Cave, found in 1986 a few miles away from the Black Sea in Romania,represents the core of the work. The oddly existing natural phenomena of a 5.5 million years time capsule, a sub terranean chemosynthesis-based ecosystem, where scientists identified around 33 species that are unique just to this cave (spiders, water scorpions, pseudoscorpions, centipedes, leeches, and terrestrial isopods). These spectacular creatures in complete darkness, isolated, and at the pre carious edge of existence, survived the harsh environment of poisonous sulphurous atmosphere. During their transformation to adapt to the new conditions, they have lost their ability to see, their appendages and antennae became extra long in order to navigate, and they became translucent, their bodies lost pigmentation.
On the other side the project is inspired by human-made adjustments and developments in tech nology and architecture for new urban living. Saudi Arabian’s ‘zero-gravity’ city THE LINE is going to be built on 170 km long, 500 m high and 200 m wide, tall and narrow, experiments with “what sort of life is possible within its mirrored walls… Proposes an entirely alien way of life, with its occupants living along a stark boundary between the hyper-dense city and a wild, untouched desert.” (“living in THE LINE: interview explores daily life in saudi arabia’s future vertical city”)
Connecting the oddly existing natural phenomena of the Movile Cave and THE LINE city concept, generates a question: in which way do we need to transform to adapt to the concepts of a shiny future city structures and modern- tech- industrial architectures designed for a living?
Exhibition view: ‘Cozzzmonautica - Forest of Antennae’ exhibition 2022, Indecis Artistrun space, Timisoara, Ro
‘Digital Ruin’
2022, self-adhesive silver foil cutted with plotter cutter placed on a plastic sheet, size A4
an image of water flowing went through digitalization and errors until it got to bits and abstraction
The abstraction let’s us interpret other scenarios, like: this is a not yet built Industrial Park, or a map, or the ruins of a city, of an enchanted palace, or... can be the forest of antennas from the metal planet, where negative surfaces are the places to be inhabited.
- reinterpreting by positioning in different environment, mostly industrial ones
- connecting the environment with the reflection of the foil
- creating a tension between reflected natural element and industrial materials
Digital Ruin
2022, plotter cutted mirror bynil on plastic sheet
‘MissTrashyPoppy.png’
2020, digital collage aka how my quarantine felt like sometimes
Long story short: I went for a run on the fields, saw some fresh poppy and I couldn’t resist the temptation to play around, making selfies, and then in front of photoshop the play continued, made some digital messing around and this weird combo came out.
*Reflects some mental manifestations, digital toxicity and carelessness
‘Open window’
2021, 3D, virtual // digital print, resin and metal distancers, 40x30 cm
In quarantine time as a necesity to express how I felt about isolation and the excess of using digital, or what my deaydreams were about I have started to create digital images combined with ‘do it yourself’ home printing improvised set (because of the lack of tools and studio sa pace).
‘Open window’ is a symbol for the connection between the outside and the inside, the window being the connection with the outside world as in the material and in the virtual places.
map
2022, photography with laptop, map and mirror
Location: studio
Detail: planning a trip, Budapest map, mirror, me
speculative map
2022, photography with laptop, map drawing
Location: cotidian home setting
Reimagining borders
Redrawing a map of mostly EU countries, traced around the borders and water borders.
Off-Offices archive
2022, photography with laptop, screen, helping hands, light projection
Location: Art Quarter Budapest
Detail: the focus shifted from work to the light image that magically appeared on the wall
‘Flow and continuity’ - ‘Pattern recognition’ 2020, pen on semi-transparent paper, A4
This work is an observation about the functions of the mind and flow state. How the thinking is in connection with the drawing.
(1) I started to draw the right side of the illustration, it took me a lot of time and concentration, enough for dragging me into the world I have been creating, I was there, inside that imagined place, without planning the next steps I just let myself being carried by this chaos to figure out.. This pleasure generated a flow state and after I finished the right part I moved to the left to start again the other side of the ‘frame’, without realizing what I am doing or gonna do I just continued to draw to have each part finished.
(2) A recognition of the presence of a flow state and a continuity, came when the two sequenc es switched place and the result was almost perfectly melted as continuation of each other.
2.
1.
‘FLUX’
2020, meditational object artist book, digital print
Book made during the art residency ‘Bandwith’ organized by Sounds like a book.
The ten days residency plus post-production organized by Sounds like a book had two components: sound and graphic design. First we worked with sound as inspira tion to build up the concept and in the second phase to implement it in a book. The concept behind the book was to give back the feeling of fluidity, the continuosity of the river flowing, of the time passing and changes.
The set of 14 pages on the one part consist of the 14 images done about the river. On the inside a transcript of meditation guide, describing the process of how to get in a meditative state, the feeling occuring inside and some poetical description about the surroundings accompanied by ilustrations with Glyphs.
Images are arranged in an ascending order and marked by initially the seconds when the images were taken, after some thoughts I’ve changed it to any kind of time: hours, seconds, year, terrestrial time, because I felt like this poetic and philo sophical way of wroking with time, has no linearity. Also each image is marked by a yellow line in the same way as the lines were changed naturally by the flow.
The pages together resulting a glitch, recomposed noisy image.
‘Tears of the lake’ 2020, video stills, 1’30’’ stills from the video ‘Tears of the lake’, short documentary video about the behaviour of pearls and waves. Tear shaped pearls are left on the shore, and every wave makes them become more and more part of the ecosystem
‘Moments of disappearance’
2020, gauzy papers and pencil
‘Wavescapes’ , detecting the way of the waves and catching the temporality of the moment.
First one about literally the way of a wave in sequences and the second one is an overlapping layer of multiply waves that are caught in their moment of disappearance.
HEATWAVE 42 _ THE BEES DRINK PEARS 2022.07.23.
HEATWAVE 42 _ THE BEES DRINK PEARS 2022.07.23.
2022, photo documentation pears, bees
On that day I woke up to the alarm of an alert: today is going to be 42 degrees outside, red code! It was the day before I arrived home to my parents. During the road I saw two deserted areas on fire, big areas, fast fire. Next day, in the red code heat, me and my mother went to check on the fruit trees. My mother sadly showed me that the pears are eaten by the bees, because they cannot get enough water so they extract it from the fruit. And the land was also dehydrated.
Archive of Off-Offices 2022
Location: 47°12’21”N 22°54’59”E
Detail: working on Schloss Solitude application
Off-Office chair 2022, photography with laptop and swing
Off-Offices archive
Archive of Off-Offices – It is a process of documenting my surroundings and the interaction with the digital. Especially the ones that shows how coexisting with inanimate things can be lifted to a heightened level, feeling attached and ca ressed by those things that are surrounding me.
As a migrating artist, digital artist, remote freelancer graphic designer and cultural agent (organizing, coordinating, editing), I am often working on laptop from places different than the tipical office spaces, being this documentation be transformed to an investigation on places that can be compatible with laptop work, and this way maping the route of mine, of travels, and places occured. Therefore I have started to document these movements and settings that occur during contemplation, creation and work and they are transformed when gets in contact with the work that will be done there.
Before as well, but expecially since 2020, since the pandemic, in solitude and isolation, our digital devices and platforms became even more essential. There fore through this series I explore the connection between technology, human, human-made things and nature, throughout the contrast and aesthetics created between the laptop, as a solid metal object and other elements that get in dia logue with it. Observing how bodies shape each other. Imprint of traditionalism, classes, rouitines, different settings from different re gions.
Represents my work ethics and methods by exploring the connection with the laptop, that is unfortunately almost always with me, since the working hours of a freelancer and cultural agent are not defined and can be whenever 24/7. Places can be anywhere in nature and in different inside spaces, the settings are organized organically, and I am playing with reflections, distortions and catching ephemeral phenomenas.
Due to the aspect of randomness, photographs are often taken with phone camera. The archive is constantly expanded with new set-ups. Exploring the means of coexistence and the morals of using digital through a critical, and humorous standpoint, and by connecting art, technology, psychology and nature.
Thank you!
