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Catalogue text 2003
Olga Daniilopoulou
The way one goes about irrespective of one’s personal approach, is in effect an artistic strategy. Panayotis Linardakis possesses the creative skill of moulding visual forms from scratch; to blend materials and colors, objects and memories, images and emotions to produce constructions with a powerful sense of challenge about them.
He begins by drawing a subject in color – a theme taken from everyday life, complete with its own in-built message. Then he turns it into a caricature, and finally adds a utility object, also with its own value. The result is a complex image that requires interpretation. I do not believe that the artist attempts any kind of beautification of his image, nor does he try to convince us of some aesthetic precept. H only sends simple and sincere – yet instructive – messages about the world that surrounds us and its ugliness that wears us down; messages which remind us of truths we often forget, images which bring to mind our ugliness. Images of despair about our entrapment into a threatening world: A road sign is a schematic reminder that babies also grow old; a brassiere supports two pieces of cotton; the statue of a colonel is being erected.
Then there are other images which won’t let us out of the tunnel, or some vicious animal gives us a fright. The artist goes on to add a few timid flowers and soft colors and motifs. Could it be that not everything is such a mess in the environment? The set of works in this exhibition imposes a dialogue with ourselves. The same is true among the works themselves, and it gets to us clear and ready to measure itself against our own feelings. The work of Linardakis does not come to console or appease us. We cannot classify it as pure painting, no can talk about painterly values or a personal palette. We cannot call it sculpture, either, as the three-dimensional element comes from the collage. What we can say is that it is a mixed-media composition which serves the artist’s mood and taste. Thus we are able to enjoy an exhibition which is simple and totally sincere – so sincere, in fact, as to make Linardakis emerge as a purposeful artists. And this, I think, is a rare thing in these times.
Sotiris Pastakas
THE WHITE CELLS OF P.LINARDAKIS
We do not look at white, white looks at us. Caught in its gaze, imprisoned, condemned, banished, each if us prepares an plea so as to be able to inhabit it. The soul cannot be inhabited – to put it differently, only o few, chosen people manage to settle in their soul in the end. White is its colour; it is omnipresent in there, in good and evil alike, looking at us without intervening. Our soul is the white cell, and before facing it Linardakis plays with it a desperate, deadly fame of poker: the four hands around the invisible table are the faters – Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos – and the Painter. We don’t know who will win. As long as one finds the courage to sit at the table… Most of us seem like the fellow who opens a bottle of champagne before the big journey. This I not the grand opening of our death: it is our soul we are saying goodbye to from the platform, white souls that persistently flow out in consolation out the of the tube with the acrylic of life, slowly spreading colours and filled surfaces… Look around you just before sailing time and you will see how many souls have left your beloved people, how many souls are about to sail because they lost the poker game to the fates, or simply because they didn’t have the nerve to play with them.
How many people carry within them a female! Don’t hasten to recognize her: mother, mistress, sister, friend, wife – her face could jut be your face; we all carry the face of a woman inside us, and sometimes we don’t even need to know. The ankle is facing us, which means it is about to walk – and none of us knows where ours steps may lead to. A new fish awaits us, caught in our hook – who knows what fish we’ll catch tonight.. For our soul was caught in the fishing line, leaving as its sole legacy a white cry, like all the unuttered cries of our life.
Dressed in his white bathrobe, Linardakis, engulfed in the warmth of sulphuric water and the comfort of his private spa, amidst vapours and perfumes, crams and balsams, describes everything that leaves an impression from among the surrounding whiteness: fingers, ankles, heads, nooks and bulges; he retrieves objects, everything his soul has inhabited and then lost – as well as we all do. Should you happen to be moved by the white cells of his soul, don’t hesitate to wipe the tear from the edge of your eye: white leaves us all in tears – it may be its secret property. Still, isn’t the worst that could befall you. What happened to me aster I saw the white cells of Linardakis was that I wanted to remove the colours from the paintings of other artists to discover their soul… Just think of the torment from now on, when every time you see a painting you will be looking for the white colour has stolen from you! Having discovered White, Linardakis presents us the artist’s cell in the most direct way and achieves the impossible: truly a producing for painters, he makes us all participants and accomplices in the awe before the white surface of each new day. Every morning life begins anew. On the white surface we are called upon, just like the painter in front of the blank canvas, to draw our face with gestures, deeds, words and feelings, movements, encounters and views, laughter and tears; and it is a lucky person who manages to reproduce something of his features on the canvas. It may be that happiness lies simply in an encounter between soul and face. It is this attained happiness the White Cells of P. Linardakis reflect, and he wishes to share the joy of his discovery with us: having achieved the identification between body and soul, he comes to reminds us of the verse of Walt Whitman: “And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul”?
Olga Daniilopoulou
The way one goes about irrespective of one’s personal approach, is in effect an artistic strategy. Panayotis Linardakis possesses the creative skill of moulding visual forms from scratch; to blend materials and colors, objects and memories, images and emotions to produce constructions with a powerful sense of challenge about them.
He begins by drawing a subject in color – a theme taken from everyday life, complete with its own in-built message. Then he turns it into a caricature, and finally adds a utility object, also with its own value. The result is a complex image that requires interpretation. I do not believe that the artist attempts any kind of beautification of his image, nor does he try to convince us of some aesthetic precept. H only sends simple and sincere – yet instructive – messages about the world that surrounds us and its ugliness that wears us down; messages which remind us of truths we often forget, images which bring to mind our ugliness. Images of despair about our entrapment into a threatening world: A road sign is a schematic reminder that babies also grow old; a brassiere supports two pieces of cotton; the statue of a colonel is being erected.
Then there are other images which won’t let us out of the tunnel, or some vicious animal gives us a fright. The artist goes on to add a few timid flowers and soft colors and motifs. Could it be that not everything is such a mess in the environment? The set of works in this exhibition imposes a dialogue with ourselves. The same is true among the works themselves, and it gets to us clear and ready to measure itself against our own feelings. The work of Linardakis does not come to console or appease us. We cannot classify it as pure painting, no can talk about painterly values or a personal palette. We cannot call it sculpture, either, as the three-dimensional element comes from the collage. What we can say is that it is a mixed-media composition which serves the artist’s mood and taste. Thus we are able to enjoy an exhibition which is simple and totally sincere – so sincere, in fact, as to make Linardakis emerge as a purposeful artists. And this, I think, is a rare thing in these times.
Sotiris Pastakas
THE WHITE CELLS OF P.LINARDAKIS
We do not look at white, white looks at us. Caught in its gaze, imprisoned, condemned, banished, each if us prepares an plea so as to be able to inhabit it. The soul cannot be inhabited – to put it differently, only o few, chosen people manage to settle in their soul in the end. White is its colour; it is omnipresent in there, in good and evil alike, looking at us without intervening. Our soul is the white cell, and before facing it Linardakis plays with it a desperate, deadly fame of poker: the four hands around the invisible table are the faters – Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos – and the Painter. We don’t know who will win. As long as one finds the courage to sit at the table… Most of us seem like the fellow who opens a bottle of champagne before the big journey. This I not the grand opening of our death: it is our soul we are saying goodbye to from the platform, white souls that persistently flow out in consolation out the of the tube with the acrylic of life, slowly spreading colours and filled surfaces… Look around you just before sailing time and you will see how many souls have left your beloved people, how many souls are about to sail because they lost the poker game to the fates, or simply because they didn’t have the nerve to play with them.
How many people carry within them a female! Don’t hasten to recognize her: mother, mistress, sister, friend, wife – her face could jut be your face; we all carry the face of a woman inside us, and sometimes we don’t even need to know. The ankle is facing us, which means it is about to walk – and none of us knows where ours steps may lead to. A new fish awaits us, caught in our hook – who knows what fish we’ll catch tonight.. For our soul was caught in the fishing line, leaving as its sole legacy a white cry, like all the unuttered cries of our life.
Dressed in his white bathrobe, Linardakis, engulfed in the warmth of sulphuric water and the comfort of his private spa, amidst vapours and perfumes, crams and balsams, describes everything that leaves an impression from among the surrounding whiteness: fingers, ankles, heads, nooks and bulges; he retrieves objects, everything his soul has inhabited and then lost – as well as we all do. Should you happen to be moved by the white cells of his soul, don’t hesitate to wipe the tear from the edge of your eye: white leaves us all in tears – it may be its secret property. Still, isn’t the worst that could befall you. What happened to me aster I saw the white cells of Linardakis was that I wanted to remove the colours from the paintings of other artists to discover their soul… Just think of the torment from now on, when every time you see a painting you will be looking for the white colour has stolen from you! Having discovered White, Linardakis presents us the artist’s cell in the most direct way and achieves the impossible: truly a producing for painters, he makes us all participants and accomplices in the awe before the white surface of each new day. Every morning life begins anew. On the white surface we are called upon, just like the painter in front of the blank canvas, to draw our face with gestures, deeds, words and feelings, movements, encounters and views, laughter and tears; and it is a lucky person who manages to reproduce something of his features on the canvas. It may be that happiness lies simply in an encounter between soul and face. It is this attained happiness the White Cells of P. Linardakis reflect, and he wishes to share the joy of his discovery with us: having achieved the identification between body and soul, he comes to reminds us of the verse of Walt Whitman: “And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul”?
