Fractured Majesty, 2018
Ink drawing with glitch-based digital manipulation, archival pigment print on paper – 1058 x 750 mm
Bónyai Barbara’s Fractured Majesty is a multidimensional portrait that explores questions of power, identity, and cultural representation through the intersection of traditional and digital art. The work is based on an ink drawing of a plaster portrait, which the artist has manipulated using glitch aesthetics to create a fragmented yet dignified archetype.
The profile view of the head evokes an African priest-king, whose small pointed headdress symbolizes spiritual authority. Within this figure, the majestic presence of a deeply rooted, ancient culture resonates, yet is interrupted, fractured, and rearranged by digital glitches. These digital fractures are not acts of destruction but gestures of fragmentation and reinterpretation, paralleling the social marginalization of African and African diasporic cultures within Western society.
In this context, glitch aesthetics function not merely as a technical tool but as a philosophical metaphor: the digital distortions manifest the fractured and fragmented nature of identity, culture, and power. Just as cultures of African origin are often excluded from global cultural centers while simultaneously being exploited and assimilated into dominant aesthetics, glitch simultaneously reflects distortion and a form of subversive resistance. This duality is central to the artistic gesture of Fractured Majesty: majesty and dignity do not disappear but instead find new meaning and strength within fragmentation and digital noise.
The interplay of black and brown ink tones further reinforces the cultural and historical dimensions, while the visual noise created by glitching generates dynamic tension that invites continuous reinterpretation by the viewer. The large-scale print allows the observer to simultaneously perceive the abstract, complex whole of the image and its minute, fragmented details, making the work speak both to historical collective memory and the individual visual experience of the digital age.
Thus, Bónyai’s Fractured Majesty is not merely a portrait but a visual philosophy that investigates the complex relationship between majesty, power, and marginalization within the context of the digital world, radically renewing the concept and function of the classical portrait.