Win­ter Story

The pre­sen­ted se­quence of pic­tures ta­kes the view­er to the snow-co­ver­ed win­ter land­scapes. The spec­ta­tor sets off from the de­tails and re­a­ches the tal­lest peaks th­rough the sno­wy tou­rist pa­thways. The stro­king light crea­ted such com­po­si­ti­ons by tou­ch­ing the white sur­faces, which puts even the ima­gi­na­ti­on of the view­er to tri­al. The crea­tor ta­kes the view­er to poe­tic land­scapes crea­ted by light, sno­wy sur­faces and storm. This is not­hing else than a mar­ve­lous hike from the de­tail to the who­le, while we can ad­mi­re the won­derful world of the na­tu­re crea­ted by snow and storm.

One thing is for sure: for Csa­ba Balá­si in or­der to show us in such an ar­tis­tic way the­se ma­gni­fi­cent win­ter faces of na­tu­re, he had to be on-site at the dif­fe­rent moun­tain spots. The­re, whe­re the snow, cold and frost are the lords, the­re, whe­re the raw and un­ta­med curr­ents of our Earth crea­te tho­se lights and shapes, tho­se par­al­lel or crossing li­nes, which are sel­ec­ted by the sen­si­ble eyes of the pho­to­grapher out of the snow-white world and un­folds it for us al­most like a fres­co. And in this end­less win­ter de­sert sud­den­ly the Man ap­pears in or­der to beat a path for hims­elf, in or­der to si­gnal with his foot­s­teps that for him not­hing is im­pos­si­ble and unknown doesn’t exist. In the squeeze of the gi­gan­tic moun­ta­ins and the vast na­tu­ral forces the fra­gi­le hu­man exis­tence can make mi­ra­cles. The pho­tos of Csa­ba Balá­si are, the­r­e­fo­re, not only de­lightful land­scapes, but true sym­bols, me­ta­phors and al­le­go­ries: they do not only make the view­er rea­li­ze, in­de­pendent­ly from his lan­guage, coun­try, con­ti­nent, in a con­cise way that he is sur­roun­ded by un­mat­ched be­au­ty, but also that the man can co­exist with the na­tu­re un­der any kind of cir­cum­s­tances. With the tre­asu­re that he has to de­fend, va­lue and which he must not lose. The pho­tos of Csa­ba Balá­si speak about the Earth, our Earth, in such a way that their ra­dia­ti­ve mes­sa­ge does not lea­ve an­yo­ne un­touch­ed, even though the pho­tos were made at dif­fe­rent moun­ta­ins and dif­fe­rent alti­tu­des. This is a uni­que­ness of real art and real crea­ti­on, thus a well-struc­tu­red and con­sis­tent pho­to-se­ries that can be the high­light of an ex­hi­bi­ti­on in any city of the world.

Fe­renc Szé­ke­di, art cri­tic, Am­bassa­dor of the The Eu­ro­pean Commission’s Cre­Art Project