Renegade New York artist MZ Zomick finds 'found' art in Budapest's bins

"Through Life's Prisms" Matthew Z. Zomick, found/modified postcard on photo-emulsion  (2011)

"Untitled," by Mathew Z. Zomick, found/modified art, postcard pigments on paper (2011)

Perhaps most of us would agree raw artists, the untrained, unschooled, untaught, own a special eye, the eye of the artist, whatever that is.

Matthew Z. Zomick, like millions, is one of those raw artists armed with intuitive eyes. 

Always looking for the art in things and people and creating with ease of available materials, like strawberries as pigment.

Always creating, not always preserving.

Zomick lives in Budapest. 

I have showcased some of his poems, one of his street performance art gestures that nearly got us both arrested.

It was my Budapest farewell party, 27 July. 

MZ joined three close Hungarian friends, Kinga, Adam and Akos as we cafe-hopped, ending up for a couple hours at MZ's spacious, 19th C. flat drinking beer and talking, listening to music.

MZ urgently motioned me over to a table on which was a pile of wet and soiled circa 60's family photos and a few postcards from the same era, Hungarian scenes, mostly.

It had rained that day and for some days before, off and on.

He started pulling them apart. 

Parts of one image stuck to another. Color pigments of postcards dripped onto photos.

MZ and I looked at each other, realizing new compositions wrecked from old, tattered images from this found cluster of dead memories.

MZ sought to revive some of them and has. They appear here.

More are coming, I'm told.

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Meanwhile, I found myself writing poetry again after many years, inadvertently patching it into the middle of his found visuals story. 

And since I have little clue what the words mean, it seems a workable collaboration.

Imbibing Memories

a poem by Stefan van Drake 

patent memories imbibing 

touching and sensing, visualizing, haunting

flashbacks and blowups 

postage stamps imprinted clearly on small swaths of living tissue

siloutettes

nightwalkers solemn with the wind

if there is any

peopled streets of madness going and coming

always movement

always silence

always nothing 

but who you are

then

thinking

about all this 

movement

that does not

exist

"Untitled" Found/modified art by Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish life stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

ArtTraveler´s video: an interview with Scottish illustrator and painter, Gordon Wilson, about his "I Love Fish" exhibition, inspired by a commissioned mural he did 13 years ago for a West Glasgow gangster, who loved supporting writers and artists as well as organized crime.

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.