Arusha gallery are delighted to be presenting an exhibition of new works by award winning painter, Ilona Szalay.

Witness will comprise of a stunning new collection of Szalay’s trademark oil on glass paintings including free standing works for Arusha’s tall Georgian windows, and a grid of fourteen glass works based on the artist’s self portrait. We will also be offering a unique chance to view a selection of the artists animations which will be played during our opening event on August 6th 6-9pm.

Arusha gallery has represented Szalay’s work since summer 2014 when we relaunched the gallery in our permanent premises at 13A Dundas Street Edinburgh. Szalay’s work has been included in several group exhibitions as well as taking centre stage in our gallery presentations at London Art Fair & Art 15 to great praise, therefore we are delighted to be holding her first Scottish solo show to coincide with Edinburgh Art Festival.

Ilona’s paintings trace a path through a world of conflict and power play, a place of rigid hierarchy and fierce competition. Using concise visual language the work explores notions of vulnerability and beauty, dominance and submission, violence and control. Illona seeks to investigate the tension between protection and control in her work and as a result there is an ambivalence in the images, a questioning of motive/morality, and an examination into our impulses to both create and destroy.’

Ilona Szalay was born in born in Beirut and now lives and works in the south of Italy, she completed her studies at Oxford University and Byam Shaw School of Art, London and has exhibited extensively since graduating. Ilona’s work has been exhibited at numerous London galleries including the Royal Academy. She has also gained several prestigious awards for her painting including winning the ORA Prize in 2013, being selected for the Barbican Open Arts Exhibition and in 2014 she was selected as one of 14 artists worldwide to invest in by Rebecca Wilson curator of Saatchi Art.

With recent solo exhibitions in London and Zurich, this will be an exciting opportunity to present her work to a Scottish audience with a selection of new work which was created especially for this exhibition.