F
using sympathetic sand magic and the technologies of polymer chemistry, digital design, and offset printing— the art of Miklos Sipos is truly a grand experiment. Sipos, who earned a Bachelors Degree in Colonial Archeology and minored in Geology, draws a great deal of visual inspiration from "primal matter," but uses a diverse array of modern technological tools and techniques to "reduce the complexity of nature into basic forms." Combining his knowledge of polymers—including curing techniques and the use of additives and thickeners, such as sand—with unusual pigment combinations and less known secrets of the palette knife, Sipos has made a science of mixed media expression.
Facilitating communion between viewers and the natural world by artistically representing aspects of its composition, structure, physical properties, history and the processes that shape it, Sipos encourages intimacy between humanity and the solid matter of the earth. By synthetically replicating terrestrial patterns, and physically incorporating earthly materials such as beach sand, Sipos' compositions provide visual "triggers" which cause one to contemplate not only one's personal relationship to nature, but highlights a collective need to temper
the advancement of technology
with a healthy respect for the bedrock that supports us. Using genuine beach sand from Long Beach Island, New Jersey, as a kind of to-temic substance, Sipos reinforces positive associa-
Miklos Sipos gives
us a glimpse of
a more balanced
world—a world in which
technology is no longer
at odds with nature but
in cooperation with it
tions between his audience and the seaside, evoking pleasant nostalgia in those who have visited the area. However, cognizant of the fact that it is the mind and not the eyes that interpret electrical impulses into meaningful patterns, Sipos aims to elicit feeling through visual and emotional cues rather than imposing specific meaning. Similarly, Sipos prefers to leave some pieces untitled so as not to narrow the viewer's context, or diminish the viewer's ability to experience his art more fully.
Allowing color, texture and materials to "speak" on behalf of his imagination, Sipos transmits a brief history of the planet and a unique appreciation of the many unsung marvels of its continental crust. Recalling rock strata, river silt, sandy stretches, lava beds, reptilian skin, and petrified wood, Sipos' abstract pictorial images succeed in magnifying the microcosmic beauties of the earth's surface. Harmoniously integrating terrene aesthetics and high-tech methodologies, Miklos Sipos gives us a glimpse of a more balanced world—a world in which technology is no longer at odds with nature but in cooperation with it, a world in which art is one of many ways to explore our perceptions of it.