On Thursday, October 7th at the Art Gallery «Astrolavos artlife» (Irodotou 11, Kolonaki, tel: 210 7221200, 4, fax: 210 7221304, opening hours: Wed-Sat. 10.00-15.00, Tues-Thurs-Fri. 10.00-15.00 & 17.30-20.30, closed on Monday, www.astrolavos.gr, email: gallery@astrolavos.gr) took place the vernissage of the exhibition of paintings and constructions by Anthoni Larriou, entitled: "Private Myths" and the painting exhibition of Irini Iliakopoulou, entitled: "Bye-bye".
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Anthonis Larios
"The tower destroys the sun" / "Private Myths"
The artist's new work comprises paintings and sculptures which acquire monumental dimensions. The core theme is the man, alone or with others, or even in tents with forms' clusters and narrative fiction stories. Strange worlds, internal or external, come to life via anthropomorphic figures, which interact, in forms of animals, birds or fish, in intense imaginative games. Bright colours alternate with black and dark gray in the paintings, while the sculptures depict imaginary animals in anthropomorphic forms. In the latter, the forms' geometry together with the creepy awakening of the animal through the materials used by the artist, convey the absolute alignment with current trends in sculpture.
The artist about his work: "My images generate from the phenomenology of the grotesque, as seen in Bosch or even at the enigmatic surrealistic "collages" (Max Ernst). I am interested in the de-objectification of the body, the exhibitionism, the dramatisation of the "wound" in an authoritarian manner of the ecclesiastical painting. I opt for the female body in utter health and turn it into an 'ailing' body so as to help create a secret relationship with the viewer instead of 'blackmailing' him with the shocking view of the wound/violent act. I want the audience to laugh at its own fear, not to come in terms with it but to "give it back to whom it belongs" -to the parents of every class phobia.
I am concerned by the retransmission of violence with a morphological equanimity employing techniques of classicism and composition: invisible shapes, motion back and forth, calmness of figures, a shallow area, emphasising the outline. The human body is still being presented in a neurotic way and a "frozen" move in some act of guilt. Time is wedged in between, emblematically, intensifying the violence of the visual impact.
I opt for an artistic discourse with elements from the painting tradition of medieval art for it is characterised by anonymity and some simple rules which render it ecumenical. With artistic terms of a successful globalisation, one would say that it was Art, indeed, where the Western and the Oriental elements blend in a common language. I choose the grotesque since it exists dynamically in a parallel post-historical universe and it reflects the moral instability of each era, each society building and demolishing its myths all the time.
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Irini Iliakopoulou
"Bye-bye", the title of the artist's new personal exhibition of the artist, refers symbolically to changes in our lives: adulthood- maturity. Therefore, it also refers to the farewells which are deemed necessary because of its evolutionary nature, as well as the feelings arousing out of these changes. At the same time, the title "bye-bye" refers to the simplicity of everyday life, turns into an expected 'natural' fact and takes the load off of the sentimentality involved in farewell.
The symbolic protagonists of this whole procedure are the children. The artistic suggestion balances the contrast between the seriousness or melancholy which can be seen in the children's eyes and the depiction of the body as a fairy tale. This suggestion marks the two sides of the farewell process and, moreover, of the changes involved. Thus, the tension is alleviated by means of a global, comprehensive artistic and psychological point of view. Also, it becomes easier to deal with the feelings and take the next step.
Forms with an expression of adult seriousness, severity, melancholy, calmness, knowledge and strength, as opposed to innocence, tenderness, simplicity of thought - all attributes of childhood - attribute, on the one hand, the complexity and different degrees of sentimentality and, on the other hand, the complementarity or antithesis of these to the content.
These figures are a study on the recognition and management of primordial feelings and characteristics of human nature from a philosophical point of view based on surrealism and the psycoanalytical thesis of the subconscious.
The procedure, in its totality, and the outcome of this work appears to call for looking at life's challenges right in the eyes and the perishability of existence, inviting the audience to set itself free while bearing this knowledge.
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The exhibitions will take place until October 30th, 2010. |
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