Péter Szalay

Péter Szalay (*1982, Pécs, HU) works with an extraordinary range of different media, from found objects to the highly finished plexiglas sculpture seen here. In addition to sociopolitical themes, Szalay often explores philosophical and scientific issues, including how time is measured and the visual impact of geometric forms. The starting point for 24 Hours Sculpture is the abstraction of the movement of a clock mechanism, such that black and white bars repeat to give an impression of the “tick-tock” of a clock as the clock hands rotate. However, the mechanism on which the artwork is based has been manipulated to recreate plane curves within a pentagram. The final sculpture consists of an upright, oval, concave-convex form connected to a similarly shaped reclining form. The result is a kind of optical illusion that can be viewed in the tradition of op art as practiced by artists such as the Hungarian-French Viktor Vasarely.