Around Budapest, I noticed a lot of spray painted statements proclaiming that "God Loves You". This caught my interest as it was unusual to see such a message communicated in graffiti - an illegal medium - not normally associated with the strategies of religious groups. Having been brought up a catholic, there came an inevitable point in my youth when I came across large discrepancies between my own values and those that I'd been indoctrinated with since birth. I came to sceptically view the criteria determining whether one could be considered to be good person, and worthy of God's acceptance, as some overly specific and clearly human invented rules - attempts to control behaviour with the stick of bad conscience and the threat of harsh judgement.

Reflecting this experience, I decided to qualify the "God Loves You" graffiti, rendering it a conditional statement through the addition of 'would' to the verb 'love' (in Hungarian this simply requires 'ne' to be added to the verb 'szeret') in a different colour - to keep the original distinct. The addition of "ne" also suggests a negation of the original statement.

< back to list of works