Miklos, 2021
Miklos is a multi-faceted visual artist and critical writer based out of Toronto. He came to Canada as a young child with his two brothers and parents by walking across the border to Austria during the night. Soviet repression in Hungary along with a lack of religious freedom led the family to leave. Miklos was five years old when they first tried to walk across the border in the daytime with his baby brother Tom in a wicker basket. Miklos thought there were bees buzzing around when his father told him to duck to dodge the bullets. They returned to Hungary. The next time their parents promised him and his older brother chocolate cake after they crossed the border to Austria. When they arrived at the border house, serendipitously they saw a woman cutting into a slice of chocolate cake. After standing in front of her staring, the boys were were offered a slice. In a couple of weeks they continued to Montreal, unlike the refugees today who spend much longer wait times in refugee camps. Growing up in the '60s in North America affected the brothers. At 15 Miklos was looking for a sense of identity. After seeing someone drawing a pattern on a girl’s jeans in a coffee house, Miklos said he could do that too and started drawing, even selling his first drawing that day for 50 cents. Bees and butterflies morph through Miklos’ paintings that evolved over time through additional layers of paint and ideas. As an artist Miklos says his independent thinking is a direct result of living in Canada. He says the European mentality is informed by thousands of years of tradition, locking them into more conservative thinking. From the time he was four, Miklos recalled the sense of ancestry emanating from the old family house, feeling the past receding. This sense was ruptured when he came to Canada.
Waiting
17th Julia Margaret Cameron Award Honorable Mention, Children Single Category 2021.
Trinidad Street Scene
14th Spider Awards 2019, Honourable Mention People Category. Trinidad, Cuba.
Woodbine Pond Shinny
16th Spider Awards 2021, Nomination Sports Category. Toronto, Ontario. Currently it is part of an exhibition called “Carmichael Canadian Landscape Exhibition: Tradition Transformed”, at the Orillia Museum of Art & History till January 22, 2022.
Ranchdale Park Rink
12th Annual Spider Awards 2017, Nominee for Children of the World category.
Siracusa Sicily
Rabbi and the Lions
Rabbi Asmoucha was walking with lion cubs at Antelope Park. They have a program breeding African lion cubs as part of a rehabilitation project. What was remarkable was the way the lion cubs interacted with the Rabbi, keeping him at the front while playfully swatting his feet.