arpad polgar photography

whispers from between

2025 - ongoing

Awe and fear have always been the wanderer’s faithful companions. In terra incognita, as the wayfarer must negotiate adversity in its multiple forms through darkness, fog, simmering heat, biting frost, battering rain and storms, his senses sharpen to each rustle, crackle or murmur caused by the slightest of flutters, trembles or stirs.

Ancestral instincts sort the sensorial feedback, dissecting known from unknown and benign from malign phenomena in instant assessments.

While the traveler’s attention may focus on looming dangers and marvels at the unexpected beauty, the periphery of sensorial capacities remains necessarily a blur. In those hazy fringes of percept, imagination at times escapes through narrow interstices toward the splendor of phantasmagoria and emotion, the breeding ground for myths and legends.

 Originating from centuries old Japanese folklore, stories of the supernatural became vastly popular during the Edo period, particularly during the 18th and 19th century, when ghostly storytelling evolved into social gathering events. Travelers were greatly sought for guests to contribute with chilling tales from their voyages afar.

The worlds of spirits, ghosts and supernatural phenomena, tales of Yurei and Yokai, subsequently found their way into collections of Kaidan (strange or weird tales) and onto woodblock illustrations, both printed and published to the delight of an ever growing public.

The impact of these tales from the Japanese Edo period on collective and creative imagination remains prominent to the present day.  

As an extension beyond my landscape series “transient topography – fleeting gardens”, with its formal elements inspired by Edo paintings, the present body of works shifts to those gaps and fissures of percepts, towards the blurry and shady patches at the edge of certainty where we might hear whispers and see shadows emerging from the outlands of our own imagination.

mixed technique, variable formats, printed to order only, fine art metallic paper, Epson ultrachrome inks, mounted on aluminium board, wood framing with UV70 and UV 92 anti-reflective museum quality glass