"That's not an Image"
Panos Papadopoulos / Giorgos Tserionis / Vassilis H.
10.05.13 - 22.06.13
"There is nothing worse than asharp image of a fuzzy concept"
Anselm Adams
The exhibition "That's not an Image" could also be entitled "That's not simply an Image" since it aims to present three different approaches to view the photographic image through painting intervention, the art of origami and sculptural composition of Panos Papadopoulos, Giorgos Tserionis and Vassilis H.
Panos Papadopoulos works mainly with painting and collage. His works combine the aesthetics of abstract expressionism with the kind of graffiti painting one encounters in the streets of Athens. His interventions with spray and oil paint over existing photographs have a strong tendency to distort or undo the photographic subject. His technique maintains a strong relationship with toilet-graffiti, vandalism and abstraction. The artist unfolds his problematic around the current politico-economic situation while developing a language that reflects and magnifies, rather than beautify.
In his most recent work Giorgos Tserionis presents a selection of color images from 70s magazines folded with the Origami technique. Human figures and animal forms are reconstructed through the folds as if forced into a violent redefinition. In his photographic collages and origami works, images of animals, nature and people appear as a kaleidoscopic extravaganza. Distorted bodies, faces and landscapes are recomposed through paper folds. The artist approaches his subjects with an apparent allegoric mood and at the same time a romantic, yet nihilistic look. Through existing images emerge new compositions that multiply the readings and broaden the spectrum we view each picture.
Vassilis H.'s oeuvre includes painting, sculpture and photography with references to the typology and morphology of artistic movements of the 20th century such as the Bauhaus, constructivism and the de stijl movement. The artist creates compositions that bridge our rich expressive past with our unclear present. In his work memories of those we never had, such as the "culture" of modernism, coexist and clash with personal experiences and obsessions of the artist. Bold, geometric, simple forms follow the basic aesthetic principles of modernism and represent an attempt to discover new analogies between history and the current socio-political processes. Photography in the sculptural compositions he presents in CAN gallery becomes a structural element of the sculptures, used both as a starting and a terminal point to his storytelling.
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CAN CHRISTINA ANDROULIDAKI GALLERY
