József Burkus

Born in 1957 in Bükkszentlászlo. As a high school student he participated several times in the art camp in Zebegény, inspired by Dr. Lajos Végvári. He graduated in drawing at the Nyíregyháza College.

In the early 1990s, he established contacts with his painting in Switzerland, and in 1995 he came to the USA, where he achieved considerable success.

His affinity for hyperrealism is evident from an early age, and he consciously works to make his paintings visually deceptive, turning real elements into reality through illusionistic solutions. He is both able to meet the demands of his conception of representational art and also to transcend into the realm of abstraction.
His compositions come from so deep, so inward, that they are often rationally incomprehensible.

Tibor Gyurkovics wrote in connection with a major exhibition of his work: 'He puts cracks on the canvas like time puts wrinkles on the human face.
His portrayals of women, sometimes of specific individuals, but sometimes as symbols, are present as attributes of his paintings.
His travels had a decisive influence on the development of his renewed visual world. One of the consequences of his experiences with light in Florida is that gold has become so important in his paintings in recent times, and the power and brutality of the tornado is also reflected in some of his images.
He has succeeded in creating a painterly image that is unique to him, expressing his individuality, in which his pictorial conception and technique go their own way. His organic abstract conception, his ideals and visions, his visions and dreams, his attachments and his strong desire for freedom, his new idea of beauty and his respect for tradition, his transcendence and his earthiness, his hand's capture of idea and nature, all of which rise up into the universe, make his painting a phenomenon.