At the TABLE
Flavour, Colour, and the Shared Time
Solo exhibition of Orsolya Barabassy
AT THE TABLE
Duration: April 22, 2026 - May 30, 2026
Opening date: April 22, 2026, 6.30 p.m.
Admission - 6:00 p.m.
BSLAW BRUSSELS HOME GALLERY
MAF ART
MICHEL ANGE FINE ART
Curator: Johann Friedmann
Open: Every Friday during the exhibition from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m-.
Welcome
This exhibition "At the Table – Flavour, Colours and the Shared Time" presents a series of paintings and drawings by Orsolya Barabassy that explore how the image of a laid table can move beyond still life and become a form of portraiture. Seen from above, the tables are set with plates, food, and everyday objects. Yet these compositions do not simply depict arrangements of things.
They reveal relationships, gestures, traditions, and rituals, making visible the traces of human presence. The figures themselves are absent, but their presence persists in the objects, in the structure of the table, and in the moment each image holds. Each work is rooted in a specific situation: a family gathering, a celebration, a solitary meal, a memory, or even a fleeting visual impulse. Rather than depicting the event itself, the paintings capture the moment just before it unfolds.
The table becomes a space of anticipation, where presence is suggested rather than shown.
The exhibition unfolds across four levels, tracing different aspects of this idea: from the initial recognition of the table as a portrait, through relationships and solitude, to presence as trace, and finally to the rituals of everyday life.
Throughout the exhibition, physical table installations extend the pictorial space, while short textual prompts invite reflection. Together, these elements suggest that the laid table is never empty—it is a portrait of a moment, a relationship, and a shared condition of being.
Table Portraits – Presence Without Figures
The exhibition presents Orsolya Barabassy's series of paintings and drawings, which revolves around a central question: how and why can the image of a set table—as a still life depicted on a flat surface—"transform" into a table portrait? In other words: why can we speak of the portraiture of the still life?
At first glance, the paintings appear to be still lifes—tables viewed from above, set with plates, food, and everyday objects. However, these compositions are not merely arrangements of objects. Rather, they reveal relationships and gestures, traditions, everyday or occasional rituals, as well as traces of human presence. The figures themselves are absent, but their presence remains in the objects, in the structure of the table, and in the moment captured by the image.
Each work is linked to a specific event and tells the story of a specific situation: a family gathering, a celebration, a solitary meal, a memory, or even a visual impulse that flashes during an online encounter. However, the images do not depict the event itself, but rather capture its conditions—the state that exists prior to the moment of human interaction. The table thus becomes a site of transformation: it appears as a space where the visible and the invisible intersect. The exhibition unfolds across four levels, each representing different stages of perceiving and interpreting the set table. On the ground floor, visitors encounter the initial question: what is a set table?
And to whom does it belong? Here, personal and speculative works appear side by side: images rooted in lived experience, as well as works inspired by real or constructed sources. The set table appears as a fluid interpretive framework—at once intimate and abstract, real and imaginary.
On the first floor, the focus shifts to relationships and memory. Alongside tables associated with family life, celebration, and shared experiences, works are presented that explore the experience of solitude. Together, these images highlight that togetherness and solitude are not opposites, but rather states that presuppose one another. Here, the set table becomes a portrait of the full emotional spectrum of human relationships.
On the second floor, presence—as an imprint of a moment in time—comes to the fore. The works on display here emphasize absence, distance, and temporal displacement—situations shaped by memory, history, or external observation.
The set table no longer presents the possibility of a given event, but rather its echo.
On the third floor, the exhibition returns to everyday life: moments of having coffee, eating breakfast, or informal gatherings are depicted. By this point, the viewer's perception has shifted: what previously seemed like an ordinary situation now appears structured, imbued with meaning, and permeated by human presence. We no longer interpret the table as a neutral backdrop, but as a stage where relationships constantly form, pause, and become etched into memory.
As part of the spatial structure, a physical table installation appears on each level. These tables function as three-dimensional extensions of the paintings. They are not, of course, decorative elements, but rather points of interpretation that allow the viewer to enter the pictorial world.
The arrangements—ranging from single-person table settings to larger, formally composed tables and a café-like setting—echo the visual language of the works, while introducing subtle variations in the dimensions of presence, absence, and anticipation.
Short text cards appear on the tables, inviting visitors to interpret them. The cards pose questions: Who is missing? What does a table remember? What will happen at a gathering? The exhibition thus creates an open space for interpretation.
The animated film created for the exhibition further develops this narrative by linking the individual works into a continuous visual sequence. Moving between details and composition, presence and absence, the film reinforces the central idea: the set table, even in its static stillness, is not a closed state, but an open, constantly interpretable situation!
Overall, the exhibition "At the Table – Flavors and Colors, and Shared Time" proposes an expansion of the concept of still life. In Barabassy's works, the set table has moved beyond the neutral and schematic arrangement of objects, becoming a complex visual structure capable of evoking and projecting memories, the identity derived from rituals, and the absent yet perceptible human presence.
The set table becomes a portrait—not a face, but a moment, a connection, a shared state appears within it, and becomes recognizable in our thoughts.
Exhibiting Artworks
THE LIST OF EXHIBITING PAINTINGS
A. Ground Floor
1. Orsolya BARABASSY - Raclette Party, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower left - 90x180 cm - Provenance The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
2. Orsolya BARABASSY - AI or Not? 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower centre - 80x100 - Provenance The artist's collection, 2025 - Privat collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - CEO Hévíz, 2026 BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026 - B. First Floor
3. Orsolya BARABASSY - Fifty Years of Marriage, One Celebration, 2026 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower left 100x120 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2026 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026 - At the Table – Flavour, Colour, and the Shared Time - Solo exhibition of Orsolya Barabassy
4. Orsolya BARABASSY - Anticipation, 2026 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 50x50 cm - Provenance The artist's collection, 2026 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
5. Orsolya BARABASSY - Coffee and cake, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower center - 90x70 cm -Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - CEO Hévíz, 2026 -BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
6. Orsolya BARABASSY - The Table of Painter Sándor Szász, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 70x70 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
7. Orsolya BARABASSY - Visiting, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower centre - 70x70 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - CEO Héviz, 2026 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026 - At the Table – Flavour, Colour, and the Shared Time - Solo exhibition of Orsolya Barabassy
8. Orsolya BARABASSY - Alone at the Table I., 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 24x30 cm Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
9. Orsolya BARABASSY - Alone at the Table II., 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower right - 24x30 cm Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - Mother Nature – Water Budapest, 2026 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
10. Orsolya BARABASSY - Alone at the Table III., 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 24x30 cm Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - MAF ART, Brussels, 2026 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026 - At the Table – Flavour, Colour, and the Shared Time - Solo exhibition of Orsolya Barabassy
C. Second Floor
11. Orsolya BARABASSY - Covid Easter 2020, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower right - 90x160 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
12. Orsolya BARABASSY - Time Travel – Transylvanian Journey, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 50x60 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
13. Orsolya BARABASSY - Stemmed Glass and Pencil, 2026 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 80x120 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2026 - Expositions - CEO Hévíz, 2026 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
14. Orsolya BARABASSY - And the Oscar goes to … , 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower center - 100 cm Provenance - The artist1s collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026 - At the Table – Flavour, Colour, and the Shared Time - Solo exhibition of Orsolya Barabassy
D. Third Floor
15. Orsolya BARABASSY - Brunch, 2025 - Pencil drawing - Signature: recto, lower center - 23x22 cm - Provenance The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
16. Orsolya BARABASSY - Sunny side up, 2025 - Pencil drawing - Signature: recto, lower center - 23x22 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
17. Orsolya BARABASSY - Chocolate Roll, 2025 - Pencil drawing - Signature: recto, lower center - 23x22 cm -Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
18. Orsolya BARABASSY - Petit-dejeuner, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: recto, lower right - 40x40 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BARABASSY Budapest, 2025 - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026 - At the Table – Flavour, Colour, and the Shared Time - Solo exhibition of Orsolya Barabassy
19. Orsolya BARABASSY - Coffee break, 2025 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 12x18 cm - Provenance The artist's collection, 2025 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
20. Orsolya BARABASSY - The Anatomy of Matcha, 2026 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 18x24 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2026 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026
21. Orsolya BARABASSY - Red Lips Stick, 2026 - Oil on canvas - Signature: verso, lower right - 45x45 cm - Provenance - The artist's collection, 2026 - Expositions - BSLaw Home Gallery, Brussels, 2026