An unusual exhibition will soon open at one of the permanent bases of Debrecen’s cultural life, the Incognito Club.

The solo exhibition Bestiary by Orsolya Kunkli offers insight into the artist’s most intimate, instinctive creative processes, where the scribbles of sketchbooks meet abstract material experiments.

The artist is not unknown on the Hungarian art scene: she is a third-year painting student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, where she studies in the class of János Kósa.

Her connection to Debrecen runs deep, as she laid the foundations of her knowledge at the Ferenc Medgyessy Secondary School of Art, studying under Attila Börcsök and Attila Kővári.

Despite her young age, she has already presented her work at a number of prestigious venues, appearing, among others, at Art Market Budapest and the Godot Art Expo, and in 2025 she was also shortlisted for the Amadeus Art Award.

According to the artist’s own account, her creative method is built on deliberate lack of control. In her sketchbooks she often relies on instinctive gestures, during which recurring figures, creatures and objects appear – often unexpectedly even to their creator. She treats these drawings not merely as sketches but as autonomous works.

The process of creating the paintings is similarly organic: they most often begin as abstract material experiments, where the interaction between technique, paint and various tools shapes the visual forms.

“At that point I am almost just an observer myself, watching how the form, the colours and the atmosphere develop. In this way the picture almost establishes itself,” she says.

The backbone of the exhibited material is formed by fictional and absurd life forms nourished by an internal set of motifs, which over the years have developed into “animal-like grotesque creatures”.

Sharp contrasts are characteristic of the works of Orsolya Kunkli, and this does not refer only to the play of colours. Disgust and beauty, horror and grotesque humour, oppressive tension and technical playfulness can often be perceived simultaneously.

Art lovers in Debrecen would do well to mark the event in their calendars: it begins at 6 p.m. on Thursday, 12 March. The exhibition will be opened by the artist herself.

The exhibition can be viewed until 2 April during the club’s opening hours.

Source and photo credit: dehir.hu