On Friday, the 10th of February 2006, 8.00 in the evening, in «ASTROLAVOS» artlife, opens a double exhibition with installation work by Katerina Katramatou - Touliou and drawings by Alekos Kontopoulos.

Katerina Katramatou-Touliou in her hand-painted artifacts, made by pressed paper, uses distinct and acknowledged reports of the happy, exuberant chromatic range of pop art. The four units, consisted of 3-dimensional manufactures which are being presented by the artist, are: the Apartment Blocks, the Umbrellas, the Containers and the Pipes. The artifacts, specific and stylized vary in shapes and sizes; though, as a whole emit to a pop-happy mood, which is being brought out by bright, vivid colors and naif design motives.

The subject matter of the painting which frames internally and externally the manufactures is very simple. The largest part of the works present Summer Time and what is associatively connected with that time of year, relaxed moments. Summer fruits spread upon check tablecloths, voluptuous female bodies wearing swimsuits, ice creams and lot more elements/ symbols of summertime 'parade', thus sending off a 'light', festive tone to Toulious' work. The joy and the simplicity of her drawings, in thick black lines and continuous color, the choice of bright palette as also some curvilinear motives, give out a distant relation with foreign artists of pop art and comics but also with the painting work of Greek artists of the second half of the 20th Century, like Alexis Akrithakis.

Usable or not, these artifacts with their geometrical shapes and ethnic (symbolic) motives communicate in a pictorial way the joys of life.
Varied elements embodied within the work of art, especially in the unit Apartment Blocks, portray the everyday lives of the people of the city creating short surrealistic stories. Whichever the similarities, the artist's stylistic idiom remains personalized and unique.

During the same period of time, in the art space of «ASTROLAVOS» artlife are being exhibited an array of works by Alekos Kontopoulos (1904-1975), in their majority drawings and oil canvasses.
The drawings, in pencil and sepia, are distinctive for their strict, geometrical depiction of the human form. Male and female nudes, studies of the artist from when he was working with G. Iakovides, pre-designs for his oil canvasses and portraits of friends; each one of them boasts the sheer directness and the personal touch of the artist.
On these paintings, restraint lines and the use of chiaroscuro between the shadowing of the faces and the bodies, bring out the artists' ability to convey realistically the human shape as well as the psychology of the person and its inner world. Part of this modest retrospective are some works depicting sceneries. These paintings are characterized by a strong sense of introversion, attributed in the well known impressionistic palette of Alekos Kontopoulos, with which often aspects of the rural and islandic scenery were being portrayed as romantic and melancholic or calm and deserted.

Concluding, the exhibition finishes off with more oil canvasses by the artist's late period of work. By the end A.Kontopoulos had almost totally slipped into geometrical surrealism, being one of the greatest representatives of this movement amongst Greek artists of the 20h Century.