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Viewing the ordinary as sublime October 25, 2006

The neon sign of a railway station canteen or the closed bars of a basement leather shop in Thessaloniki may seem like mundane images to spur one’s creative vision.

But artist Sotiris Panousakis singled out such commonplace scenes in public spaces, photographed them and then transformed them into a series of large-scale paintings whose warm, inward quality have nothing in common with the initial, real-life images.

In his paintings, presented at the artist’s third solo show at “the apartment” gallery, Panousakis turns the fluorescent, commercial signage or the lighting and interior design of restaurants and stores into warm colors and velvety textures. The eye-catching, standardized aesthetics of commercial spaces acquire the craftsmanship and unique quality of painting. Panousakis “deconstructs” the language of commercial signage and uses the initial images in an entirely different context. The artist intends to draw attention to the properties of painting, to explore its language and its impact. It is a concern that several artists share at a time when much of contemporary art is taken up by works that employ the so-called new media.

Interestingly, although Panousakis is a pure painter, he bases his work on the photographs that he takes of his subject. Each photograph is cropped to produce the desirable effect. A photocopy of the cropped version provides the model for his painting. Each stage takes the original image further away from what it looks like in real life. The colors change and the surfaces appear rougher and unfinished.

With photography and printing acting as mediators, the final painting becomes, in the artist’s own words, “the representation of a representation.” The original image becomes vague and representation gives way to abstraction. The play between the two is constant: From a distance, one of the paintings has the clarity of photorealism, but from up close the texture of painting prevails over description.

Panousakis’s paintings explore disguise and transformation: Public spaces are made to feel like private domains and commercial signs appear like abstract shapes. Painted with skill, they immerse the viewer in an interesting play between form and color, representation and abstraction.

At the apartment Gallery, 21 Voulis street, tel 210 3215469, to November 18. Opening hours Wed-Fri 11 a.m – 8 p.m., Sat 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Engravings reflect de Chirico’s Greece October 25, 2006

An exhibition organized in Volos, the artist’s birthplace

In his writings and the interviews he gave, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) was usually as enigmatic as the mood in his famous metaphysical paintings of 1909-1918. The degree to which he considered his work to draw its inspiration from Greek antiquity remains therefore unclear. During the 1920s, when de Chirico’s work entered a more conservative phase, the artist claimed to be a “classical painter,” yet the esoteric quality of many of his paintings and the impact of the painter Arnold Bocklin on the artist’s work give credence to his claim that what inspired him was the Nordic landscape.

Either way, the fact is that de Chirico’s work is filled with themes inspired by Greek mythology. It also includes plenty of recurring motifs that hark back to his childhood upbringing in the city of Volos.

The Greek-inspired aspect in the oeuvre of this great surrealist painter is underlined in an important exhibition on 100 engravings by de Chirico. Held at the Giorgio de Chirico Center of Art in Volos, which is the artist’s birthplace, the exhibition draws from the Lisa Sotili collection. It is curated by art historian and adviser to the Volos Municipality Faye Tzanetoulakou and is produced by Nikolas Velissiotis, who produces classical music for French national radio. Texts in the supplementary catalog are by Antonio Vastano and are taken from the Giorgio de Chirico catalogs by the Italian Bora publications.

Structured along recurring themes in the work of de Chirico, the engravings include the famous “Piazza d’Italia” series with the sleeping figure of Ariadne as the major figure, the “Gladiator” and “Dioskouroi”, Castor and Polydeuces, the twin sons of Zeus series, but also the lesser-known series of the “Bagni Mysteriosi” (Mysterious Baths), where the recurring motif of the seashore changing cabin is said to stem from the artist’s childhood reminiscences.

The train is probably the most direct reference to the artist’s upbringing. De Chirico’s father was an Italian railroad engineer and was in charge of the construction of the railroad network in Thessaly.

The departure of the Argonauts as well as the Centaurs, topics which are directly linked to Thessaly, are among the most famous themes in the work of de Chirico. Other Greek-inspired figures and themes include Hector and Andromache, Orestes and Odysseus.

Greek mythology was the inspiration for a series of watercolors that de Chirico made in the early 1960s on a commission by IRI, Italy’s largest state holding company. That same year IRI launched 60 albums, collector’s items, with these images. One of those albums belongs to the Giorgio and Ida de Chirico Foundation in Rome, which donated it to the Giorgio de Chirico Center of Art in Volos on the occasion of the current exhibition. The album which is exhibited in one of the exhibition’s sections is the only work of de Chirico owned by this Greek institution, which is named after the great Italian artist but is home to the Damtsas collection of 19th and 20th century Greek art. The donation of the album may launch future collaborations with the foundation in Rome.

Giorgio de Chirico Center of Art, 3 Metamorphoseos street, Volos, tel 24210 31701, to end-October. Open Mon-Fri 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., 6-9 p.m.; Sat 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.