WHERE TWO WORLDS MEET
Brincken is a successful banker and a leading figure in the Hungarian business and financial world. He has been building his career for more than two decades and continues to work as an active banking executive.
Yet painting did not come to him as a search for a new life. Rather, it was a return to something he had known since childhood.
As a young girl, she drew and painted, and during her secondary school years she produced a great many graphic works. She recalls that she was good at it, and even then she realised that painting might one day play a significant role in her life. For a time, she even toyed with the idea of a career in the fine arts, but life took her in a different direction: she became an economist and went on to build a successful career in the banking world.
Art, however, remained with him throughout.
In 2020, in the Káli Basin, he picked up a paintbrush once more and painted his first picture as an adult. Painting helped him unwind and re-energise him, and he found himself increasingly preoccupied with the thought: if he’d ever been any good at it, what might he be capable of if he were to properly learn the craft now?
At one point, he simply made up his mind. He was looking for a master whose professional expertise he could trust unreservedly. After a lengthy search, he found the professional calibre he was looking for in the works of the painter Kálmán Gasztonyi.
That was how he sought out Kálmán – as his master.
In the summer of 2022, she enrolled in the oil painting camp he ran, and then began her painting studies with him. At the start of their relationship, Kálmán was her teacher and Vera was his pupil.
The story, however, did not end within the walls of the studio. Their shared passion for painting gave rise to an ever-deepening personal bond; the master became a partner, and then a husband. Today, they live side by side as a married couple and two independent artists: each with their own artistic world, yet engaged in a constant professional and personal dialogue.
Meanwhile, Brincken has found his own artistic voice.
GO OUT INTO THE WORLD
One of the most personal series centres on a little girl. The character is a recurring figure in Brincken’s inner world: she embodies childlike sensitivity, a longing for freedom, loneliness, emotional wounds, and memories of the journey towards self-discovery.
The little girl sometimes clings on, sometimes looks us in the eye, and at other times turns away. She does not disappear: from time to time she returns in a new guise and with a new story. Out into the World is therefore not simply a figurative series, but the story of the child who lives on within the adult – with all its vulnerability and strength.
THE MATCH – A NEW MEANING FOR AN EVERYDAY OBJECT
Another defining visual motif centres on the match. In Brincken’s paintings, this simple, everyday object becomes a vehicle for psychological situations and human relationships.
A match may flare up, burn out, smoulder, come close to another, or remain on its own. The flame lasts but a moment, yet its trace lives on. The compositions speak of emotions, of flare-ups and transience, of attachment, loss and new beginnings.
The motif is constantly reinvented, from the very smallest works to large-scale canvases, whilst retaining its fundamental meaning.
PHOTOGRAPHS – IMPRINTS OF THE PRESENT DAY
Brincken’s third distinctive series is the world of light maps. By his own definition, these works belong to the genre of „realist abstract” painting. Their unique duality lies precisely in this: they are abstract in their aesthetics, yet realistic in their content. Behind the painterly surfaces, a cartographic system of real cities, landscapes and geographical structures emerges.
The streets, lights and networks of Budapest, Rio de Janeiro, Lake Balaton, Las Vegas and New York City are reborn on the canvas in freehand drawings. The recognisable geographical location thus gradually transforms into a visual system: a structure, a rhythm, light and a network of connections.
In Brincken’s words, light maps are „imprints of our present age”.
BRINCKEN
Brincken is Vera’s maiden name. She also uses it as her pen name, signing her works as Brincken.
The signature is thus not merely a name on the canvas: it is a link to his own history, origins and artistic identity. Behind the name lie three now readily recognisable creative universes: the personal figures of *Világgá menni*, the psychological symbols of the matches, and the urban and landscape structures of the light maps.
FROM THE STUDIO TO NEW YORK
His intensive creative journey led him, in a short space of time, to exhibition venues and international debuts. His works have been featured in exhibitions both in Hungary and abroad.
A special milestone is his light map entitled ‘New York City’, which has been selected for exhibition at the Artexpo New York art fair in April 2025.
The artistic aspiration that took shape in his childhood thus became his creative identity decades later.
In Brincken’s painting, rationality and intuition are not opposites. The structure, precision and discipline of the banking world meet the freedom of the studio, memory and emotion.
From the simple comes the personal; from the personal comes the universal.
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Critical Notes by Beatrix Jakab
Independent Curator
Founder of CoolturArt®
© CoolturArt®
