Hew Hood presents RISE - a new collection of works by Hungarian-American artist Andras Nagy-Sandor, currently based in London. RISE marks Nagy-Sandor's third solo exhibition at Hew Hood Gallery, following TEASE and HOLD. Each title is a verb - an action or command - reflecting shifts in his conceptual terrain. TEASE sparked world-building, excitement, and identity formation; HOLD introduced rootedness, connection, and structure; RISE delves into a darker, more complex realm, where the entanglement of human, natural, and mechanical elements takes on a more ominous tone. While earlier works were rooted in a sense of place, RISE shifts focus to the human element: how bodies, instincts, and desires shape or clash with these hybrid worlds. In this vision, environments adopt bodily functions (digestion, circulation, decay), and bodies in turn absorb structural or mechanical qualities. RISE zeroes in on our primal drives: sex, domination, survival, and death.
As a dual citizen and immigrant, Nagy-Sandor is deeply engaged with hybridity - not only in questions of identity but also in how we navigate and relate to different environments: virtual, physical, indirect, artificial, and organic. His recent explorations have turned toward the evolving intersections of cyborgs, artificial intelligence, mirror neuron theory, and embodied sensemaking - envisioning urban spaces where humans, nature, and the built environment have already fused into a single ecosystem.
Nagy-Sandor's painting practice is grounded in a dynamic interplay of contrasting visual languages. Blending elements of figurative art with currents of contemporary abstraction, he constructs images where fluid, organic forms intertwine with geometric structures; where human and non-human elements seamlessly converge; and where power and delicacy are held in delicate tension.
His visual world is deeply shaped by Hungarian mythologies, the animated cinema of Marcell Jankovics, Japanese manga and anime (especially Kentaro Miura's Berserk), and graphic novels like Kevin O'Neill and Pat Mills' Marshall Law - all of which probe and complicate heroic myths through dense, elaborate imagery. Yet, Nagy-Sandor's approach to painting remains acutely aware of the medium's historical weight. Through layers of texture, pigment, and symbolism, he reanimates inherited motifs, transforming them into a richly personal mode of storytelling.