Fajgerné Dudás Andrea Háziasszony Katalizátora - exhibiton

Andrea Fajgerné Dudás is an artist, contemporary painter, housewife,
feminist, performance artist and a mother of two.
She feels at home in all of these roles, but only after she challenges,
breaks down and reinterprets female role models, the expectations
attached to being an artist and the elitist behaviours.
She took her husband's name according to traditional Hungarian custom,
which she interprets both as belonging to a man and as an artistic
statement.
She explores the intertwining of female identity, social roles and
patriarchal conventions, while as a feminist she is also creates confusion
in the contemporary art milieu with her conservative female name.
The dual play with roles and identities runs through all her activities,
whether it comes to paintings depicting and imitating housework, a jam-
making performance, or mopping up an exhibition space.
The most common sources of her work come from her private life,
housework, culinary activities and motherhood, but these themes are
embedded in a broader, global social context that affects women.
She draws attention to gender inequality, oppression and to the
exploitation nature of unpaid work done by women through a critical
examination of the concept of invisible work, domestic work and home.
The central motif of Fajger's art is her own body, depicted in its
unvarnished reality, (also) shown naked, pregnant, fat and wrinkled,

thus going against the ideal body image conveyed by the mass media
and casting her vote for self-acceptance.
She sometimes uses her body as a basic art material, as a canvas or as a
projection surface fit for conveying a social message.
Her performances aim to shake the audience out of their comfort zone,
while she also becomes part of an improvisational, unplanned situation.
An integral part of her artistic activities is eat art, where she expresses
experiences and feelings that cannot be displayed through her paintings.
The most important point of alignment of Fajger's creative practice is the
feminist artistic tradition, which aims to raise the work of forgotten
female artists to public awareness. Her paintings are full of art historical
references, and she enjoys appropriating and rethinking the works of
women artists she appreciates (e.g. VALIE EXPORT, Frida Kahlo, Renate
Bertlmann, Birgit Jürgenssen, Niki de Saint Phalle, Mierle Laderman
Ukeles) and regards them as role models.

The exhibition entitled Catalyst of the Housewife is the adaptation of
Fajger's most important themes and her overall artistic activities, which
can be identified almost as a brand, to the conditions of the venue.
In addition to figural painting, we also witness her adventures in the
direction of geometric and lyrical abstraction, but this time she also
extends her painting art to unusual surfaces and objects.
The exhibition – and the installation overall – gives an insight into the
artist's studio, kitchen and garden and into her life art, interwoven with
diverse roles and identities.

Viktória Popovics