Brigitta Milák:

Bada Márta arcképThe painter, who was born in 1968, talks about her life: 'I was a kind of girl who never played with dolls. I always wanted paints and felt pens and crayons. My mother wasted her breath telling me it was not a normal thing and what would happen to me. My mum was an agricultural labourer and she could never imagine that her little daughter would deal with arts one day, even though my dad was from a musician family. And she always said that the hoe and agriculture were the means to make ends meet, but I was absolutely not interested in that My life took a new turn when I met the artist Janos Vagreti in 1995. He was the one who opened my eyes that I have to paint the past and the culture of the Gypsies. And this is my life, because we are one great nation. But we have one huge problem that we do not stick together. We are gypsies - even if we call ourselves Hungarian, Olah. this or that kind of gypsy, it does not matter. We are one - we speak the gypsy language, keep the culture or we don't, we still have to hold together: If we take a look at the Law of the Ancients and consider it as an epic novella we can put together a complete story or maybe the 'history'. We just have to make connections between the different 'characters' and things. We can recognise the characters; the main actors, the supporting actors and the crowd in the picture. There are scenes, which you can see simultaneously, not like in a real play. All the actors are everyday people like the craftsmen in Midsummer's Night Dream by Shakespeare. They represent the ancient gypsy crafts; the wide variety of trades proves the place of the Gypsy in the society, their usefulness and formal acceptance. Amongst the scenes the well represents the common origin and life, the ancient ruin with the cedar above emblems biblical times. The snow covered mountains remind us of India, of descending from a distant land and of secrecy at the same time. Still, the real meaning of the picture is the loss of ancient idyll. The paintings, which inspired the 1993 photo album of the Museum of Ethnography, signify genuineness and authenticity for the painter.





Milák Brigitta





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