Artist’s Statement

“In 1988, I was working as a salesman for a printing company in Alexandria, Virginia. At my desk during slow times I would cut very small shapes that I would later use in the studio as templates for steel sculpture parts — a sort of doodling in 3-dimension. I used the back of a legal pad so as not to damage the desktop. The marks left by the X-Acto blade I was using, left what appeared to me to be an industrial landscape of factory shapes, which I defined and colored in with pens and magic markers, creating the sketch for Industrial Landscape #1.

I showed the sketch to my friend, collector and mentor, Murray Bring, who encouraged me to pursue the idea as an interesting extension of the Building Series.

Industrial Landscape #1 marks my departure from 3-dimensional building facades and building segments. My interest expanded into larger landscapes. The first landscapes, while essentially flat, still had some low relief dimension. These paintings were obviously, and strongly influenced by the Precisionist Movement in early 20th Century American art, and my variation on the genre was the addition of a distinct third dimension. I will always consider myself more of a sculptor than a painter. Industrial Landscape #1 and the works that followed also mark the introduction of an expanded use of color in my work. The individual buildings were generally monochromatic.”

-Janos Enyedi, 1980

excerpted from Memories of Milltown, catalog