Plantportraits

Plantportraits installation is made of "plant portraits", which by evoking the genre of portrait, experiment with the exchange of human and plant roles, and the humanization of nature. Reflecting on the centuries old tradition of portrait painting, and on the genre of portrait photography which replaced it in the 19th century, Mátyási prepared the “images” of extinct species based on the hungarian “Red list” of endangered or extinct Hungarian plants. The portraits of plants appear in smaller or larger frames similarly to family portrait walls, indicating the past of their existence and isolating them from their beholders – just like the works depicting protected wetlands. The sepia effect dominating the portraits also raises the problem of aestheticisation of nature by humans.