M WOODS is proud to announce the first solo museum exhibition world-wide by Hungarian artist Szabolcs Bozó (b.1992). The exhibition “Must You Dance” will present the artist’s most recent works, including paintings, works on paper and site-specific multi-panel painting installations and sculptures.

Born in 1992 in Pécs, Hungary, Szabolcs Bozó has risen to become one of the most promising European artists of his generation with his cartoon-ish, playful and highly individualistic artistic style. For Bozó, art is a form of spontaneous expression that springs from his personal experience, allowing him to develop a distinctive visual language which is free from the constraints of formal painterly composition.

In fact, his childhood memories and past experiences are key to Bozó’s art. His favourite Hungarian animation and children’s books were full of local folklore, mythology and dark humour, an aesthetic and cultural context that was distinctly different from their American/Western counterparts of that time. A break dancer in his teens, his innate understanding of the dynamic movement of the body in space and a sense of wild physical energy is explicitly apparent in the gestural and rhythmic brushstrokes in his canvases.

For his first museum exhibition in China, the artist has also incorporated a special character in his painting - inspired by the most beloved Chinese animation “The Monkey King” - which will be exhibited alongside the original animation designs on paper from the M WOODS collection for the first time. 

Image courtesy of Carl Kostyál, London I Stockholm. © the artist. Photo by Yuki Shima.