Dissolving in it, vanishing into it, hiding within it – or, conversely: standing out from it, emerging from it… This mysterious hovering fills István Szajkó’s “yellow paradise,” the painting titled Triumvirate, or the Yellow Fog. This painting is unusual from Szajkó, an painter best known for his “bicycles.” Unusual – but is it really? Within the secret-filled Szajkó universe, this artwork is a significant contribution. Mystical. Enigmatic. Full of secrets. Perhaps the Holy Trinity itself? Where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit drift arm in arm through the misty dawn? Or: come on now?! Are they “just” three strange, fog-shrouded figures? Perhaps stumbling home drunk after a night of revelry? And around them, the Subotica dust is already illuminated by the rays of the rising sun spreading across the horizon?

Perhaps Szajkó’s favorite poem is Dawnstruck by Dezső Kosztolányi, who also hailed from Subotica – this painting, too, is a kind of drunkenness, an intoxication. But here, the “dreamlike honeys” flow not in blue, but in yellow, onto the palette. And what the painter is able to bring out from that yellow palette…?

To me, this is one of Szajkó’s most peculiar paintings. So much mystery, so many unsolved enigmas. I gaze at it and absorb its mysticism. For this is the true power of Szajkó’s paintings: something primal, instinctual, ancient mysticism, the power of the testis emanates from them; and through the radiance of this ancient male energy, we feel safe within the space of these images – we feel protected, as though they ward off evil spirits, like the depictions on cave walls. They inhabit us, and we inhabit their space. Together, in safety…

(written by Andrea Illés)