My name is Gergő Bánkúti, I was born in 1991, in Hungary. I am a visual artist currently living and working in Innsbruck as part of the Bildingship residency program. I hold a BA in visual arts from the Eszterházy Károly University (2014) and an MFA painter degree from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest (2019). I am mainly working in painting, drawing and installation, but I feel sculpture and video art close to me as well. 

During my artistic practice I had some international exhibitions and I was participating in different residencies and symposiums. My main interest is the exploration of remembrance; many of my works concern the issue of memory, passing away, absence and our relation to our ancestors’ inheritance through a symbolic way. I juxtapose personally important texts with materials from my home village, or relics from the forgotten. The base of my installations and sculptures are these materials. I make memorials of the past life – both as a personal narrative and as a larger social history about a disappearing life. With my recent painting practices, I am trying to blend the rituals and symbols with the mundane reality. 

I had few solo exhibitions with my paintings, sculptures, and with my installation and video art as well. The two most important are called: ‘I inherited a pigeon heart’ and ‘The soil underfoot is enough for me’, both took place in Budapest, Hungary. I exhibited my works at the Art Market Budapest, in the Voloshyn Gallery, Kiev and I had group shows at Krk, Croatia and in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic, both in 2018. In the same year I got the award for young artists at the III. National Watercolor Triennal. and I also got the Hungarian/German Ludwig travel grant to travel to Mexico for a month, also in 2018. After my graduation I was selected for the Bitamine Faktoria artist in residency program in Irún, Spain, where I carried out a participatory performance with the public, called ‘Still missing’.

For more information see www.gergobankuti.com.