Balancing between reality and imagination with József Brózsely
The art of Creative Director József Brózsely a.k.a. Józsi is introduced within this month’s Art of Brick article. Like many Brickers, Józsi is also a qualified architect who started working at an architecture firm. Later on, he channelled his interest toward archviz and joined Brick in 2014 as a Junior 3D artist. He escalated yearly in his career to become a Creative Director in 2021 but he never set this as his goal – he identifies the road leading here as a game. He has a similar view on the archviz profession too, which he considers ‘an intriguing chess play in a 3 dimensional world, where multiple actors contribute to the most optimal results for all’. As a team leader, his focus has slightly shifted to other priorities too, but he is unable to give up creating images – as this entry is about to exemplify.
Formative years
Józsi’s grandmother was a painter who had a significant influence on him as a child – with her help he developed a keen eye for colors and composition. Józsi recalls:
‘A fond memory I have is when my grandmother asked me to paint the mountain in the background blue. I looked at her in bewilderment… But Grandma, is that mountain full of trees? At that time I had a hard time understanding the meaning of aerial perspective.’
Parallel to working on his artistic skills and way of seeing, he also opened up to understanding the technical build-up of his surroundings. His admiration of the faucet cross-section as a structure and the industrious, painstaking work of his uncle who worked as a stonemason steered him into civil engineering and then architecture.
Art in the making
Piecing it together
It is tempting to try and figure out what makes a good image. From the perspective of Józsi, one of the secrets of crafting an exceptional image lies in bringing different elements together:
‘Image creation is like a puzzle. You have to assemble the image piece by piece, spending a lot of time on each detail. Of course, it takes a lot of patience but by the end, everything will fall into its place. 3D artists should also like working with materials and find beauty in everything, all the images they work with. I think these are key if you want to avoid creating mediocre images and make your mark in the profession.’
Fresh Air
When he is a bit short of time but feels the urge to create as leisure, Józsi produces what he calls ‘quick drafts’. An earlier draft titled Fresh Air (above) demonstrates his fascination with details, materials and marks the beginning of his experimentation with arched surfaces. In his eyes, the curve is an intriguing shape as it lends itself to a variety of interpretations. If asked to draw one freely, individuals would have different results as there are no instructions or tools to craft it. Curves are unique in their own right, offering many possibilities and playfulness. In Fresh Air the centerpiece is a loose spiral, formed by curved wooden planks. The reflecting glass, warm woods, icy environment and a clean white cloth are subtle clues that give away the function of the structure – a sauna offering quiet moments in the fabulous winterscape.
The birth of The Bridge
The Bridge
Józsi was invited to design a bridge for the D2 Challenge No.9. – a design competition co-organized by D2 Conferences and Brick Academy, aimed at 3D artists – that would fit into different environments and moods smoothly. Again, he took the arch as a starting point, and without constraints he applied multiple curves. The end result is a bridge that resembles a bird landing on the water with its wings spread out to reduce its speed.
Partial view of The Bridge
In his final illustration (below), birds can be found everywhere, referring to the shape of the structure, and there is also a tiny paper boat with a flag to remind one of the origin of the picture – Brick. Józsi’s bridge proved highly inspirational – 138 designs were submitted to the competition, featuring his design in a myriad of situations and creative concepts. The top illustrations were evaluated within a live streaming deliberation, which you can view here.
The Bridge, final image
Empty – Never Alone
A sight Józsi is particularly passionate about is the route between his home and work, the many faces Óbuda has with the Three Border Mountains and Danube. In the past two years owing to the pandemic restrictions, he got acquainted with another side of this area – a deserted and unwelcoming version. The animation titled Empty – Never Alone (below) was created in the midst of lockdowns, when a sense of stagnation and emptiness prevailed the most.
A still from Empty – Never Alone – the Brick office during the lockdown
‘The greatest silence was when there were only one or two people in our huge office. The PlayStation was only gathering dust and there was no foosball, no lively coffee breaks where you could mingle with your colleagues. But in this huge silence, you could hear the most important words.’
Empty – Never Alone animation
New perspectives
Józsi and Chief Creative Director Márton Zoltán Tóth created an animation titled re[ ]naissance that shows a dystopian future where AI is used for designing buildings. The most prominent scenes from Empty – Never alone were used to illustrate how AI could gain consciousness, taking control over the built environment. They submitted the animation for CG Architect’s 3D Awards in the Non-Commissioned Film category. Their originality in approaching cinematography and quality of editing was acknowledged by the jury, as Józsi and Márton’s work got selected among the 5 final nominees in their category.
Józsi has many concepts in his pipeline waiting to be realized. For the time being, he continues creating quick drafts in which he merges elements from reality and his imagination.
