I dislike the mindlessness induced by social media. I loathe the barrage of advertisements I’m subjected to when I engage with it. And I resent the fact that Google and its ilk, with their algorithms, attempt to do my thinking for me. But occasionally, just occasionally, Facebook sends me something I like.

Budapest Up Close is a Facebook page with the tagline: A look at the people, art, innovation, business, and ideas from a land that has influenced the world for decades yet remains a mystery to many. Okay, I thought, a pleasant change from the usual naysaying press that overshadows this country. Curiosity piqued, I made a coffee and sat down to check it out. I was particularly interested in the art offer, as I’d recently come by some spare white walls that needed a little something.

One post caught my eye: paintings by Hungarian artist, Karl Meszlényi. I clicked on the companion website and lost myself in his world. As I scrolled through his work, I fell in love with a painting of a stork in full flight, wings splayed, feathers flighted. Back to the FB page to send a message enquiring about prices and lo and behold it turned out that I knew the woman behind this initiative – American-born Liz Frommer, a long-term Budapest resident.

Frommer is helping promote up-and-coming Hungarian artists, of which Meszlényi is one. But more than simply showcasing the art, she’s all about the artist. Yes, I could go to a gallery and pick my painting, but through Frommer, I got to go to Meszlényi’s studio, meet him in person, and discover the mind behind the magic.

Meszlényi has been drawing since he was 14. Back then, he wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Instead, he was drawn to art and took up painting when he was 19. But it wasn’t until four years later that he had sold and saved enough to pay his University fees and could enrol in Eszterházy Károly College in Eger, where he learned the finer aspects of his art.

A self-professed painter, rather than an artist, he dabbles in all media – pencils, oil, mixed media, acrylic, watercolour – and has several thematic concepts he follows. Birds are a speciality, as are horses and lions and abstracts. He’s drawn to the freedom of birds, their colours, their expressions. I fancied that some of his subjects seemed a little cross, but all of them are exquisite. Curious at the distinction he drew between artist and painter, he explained that artists express themselves while painters study the techniques of visual communication. I liked this, noting to myself that by his reckoning, I’m an artist, but as a painter, I fail miserably.

Meszlényi’s city studio is a small room in his mum’s flat in the XIVth district. Shedding our shoes at the door, we picked our way through into the front room where sparkling wine and cheese and crackers awaited. That wine and art go together is an indisputable fact in my world. I silently applauded. We chatted for a while, with Meszlényi talking about his life, his studies, and the fire that robbed him of so much of his work. He spoke of his collectors, the many ardent followers of his art who live in Brazil, Germany, the USA, the UK, and other countries around the world. [He recently sold at a piece at Saatchi Art in London.] He spoke of interviews and exhibitions, of fame and fortune, of what it takes to make it. And all the while, a little more of the essence of who he is escaped.

Primed and ready, he began to pull out canvases of various sizes and shapes and colours and forms. He paints big, and bright, and bold. And I was lost in an abstracted Rorschachy world. I saw caves and waterfalls and stalagmites. I saw mushroom clouds and tornados and spilt pots of jam. I saw parrot tails and tidal pools and dressing-room mirrors. And these were just the abstracts.

I can’t comment on Meszlényi’s technique. I can’t critique his style. I can’t tell you if he’s good or great or the next Audubon. All I can say is that his work is evocative, it is expressive, it is ebullient. Even the most delicate of his birds oozed character. And the more I looked at them, the more I focused, the more the story developed. I was tripping.

I know I’m given to rhapsodising. When I find something I like, I get a little carried away. But this was a quieter, more reflective trip. I didn’t like everything I saw. Not every piece had something to say to me. But the ones that did spoke volumes. And lest you think that I’m losing it, check out an interview Meszlényi did last year with Zoltan Alexander of ZOLTAN+, former Editor of the New-York-based Ubikwist magazine, who also visited his studio. He had this to say: ‘To my total surprise I was stunned. “Am I with the incarnation of Pollock-Twombly, wrapped in the dark life of Rothko?” I asked myself. Rarely, I have seen such passion coming from such a young artist. The love for his work was instantaneous.’ And while I can claim little knowledge of the worthiness of art other than what it does for me, personally, she knows a thing or three about the world of painters.

I came, I saw, I fell in love, and I pick up my pieces in January.

Meszlényi is one of the growing cohort of artists that Frommer is promoting. She’s been around them for years, socialising with them and appreciating their work. And with Budapest Up Close, she’s on a mission to bring the world to them, one person at a time.

If you’re in the market for some statement pieces or simply want to see a painter in their home environs, contact her at lizfrommer@gmail.com

First published in the Budapest Times 12 January 2018

2018.10.31 Editor’s Note: The article has been updated to correct an error. The interview with Karl was done by Zoltan+ as now noted and posted by Gianni Couiji.  www.zoltanplus.com