« Spanish Tale », Painting, 21/3 – Spain

Miltos Michailidis

« Spanish Tale »

Painting

Maria Demetriades, Medusa Art Gallery and Joan Carles Roca Sans, Artium Gallery, on Friday 21st of March 2008 they invite you to the opening of Miltos Michailidis painting exhibition, in Artium Gallery of Girona Spain, entitled “Spanish Tale”.

The first picture: it’s nearly dark. I am in my studio finishing up some final details. Thinking, more than getting anything actually prepared.
A sky of a delicate purple hue can be seen indistinctly through the window. This is the starting point.
Maria Dimitriadi is in her bedroom wearing a dress too light for the season. She is opening and shutting drawers with great determination. She knows what she is going to take with her on the trip. This is the second picture.
In the third picture, Maria is just outside the airport looking at our airplane taking off with a deep red sky in the background. The missed flight.
The airplane flies over our heads. The sky becomes a delicate purple again and we revise our plans. I hear the name Victor Rojas. This is the fourth picture.
In the fifth picture we are outside a house unknown to me. It has a large palm tree in the courtyard. Before us lies the solution to our problems and a new beginning.
Sixth picture: Maria is standing at the door of No. 104. This is the home of Mr. Victor Rojas.
Our Spanish friend gives us a little help. He is sitting in the half-light of his living-room under a yellow lantern. Maria met him on the island of Paros at one of the meals she organized at her home. I am seeing him for the first time. He speaks to us of a secret magical road which leads to Spain. All this is going on in the seventh picture.
In the eighth picture our car is stopped in front of a sign. It reads: DEAD END. NO TRESPASSING. The road starts beyond this sign.
We make the first stop. I stretch my joints to get the stiffness out, while Maria is trying to keep things on this trip in equilibrium. I am probably also smoking a cigarette in the ninth picture.
As we continue our trip in the tenth picture, we observe for the first time the enormous swan that has been following us. Getting closer we see the strange couple in the eleventh picture. We become eye-witnesses of the love felt by the swan for the beautiful dancer. But it is time to continue our trip. We must leave the swan behind in the twelfth picture.
In the thirteenth picture, Maria is driving the car and I am sitting next to her. We have the beautiful dancer with us who yearning to finally see the big city at first hand. We pass in front of a blue church. A sign we‘ve arrived.
When in the fourteenth picture we are at least in the city, we find everything wet. I see a dog walking in the middle of the street. It’s evening.
We park outside our destination. A house in the corner that can barely be seen. Four palm trees and a mobile home. A mountain range in the back. The fifteenth and last picture. That is what is painted.
I am Miltos Michailidis. I studied the art of painting at the Milan Academy of Fine Arts, also known as Brera, in Italy.
Maria Demetriades is the owner of the Medusa Art Gallery located at 7 Xenokratous St. in the city of Athens, Greece.
For the month of March two thousand and eight we have been invited by Mr. Joan Carles Roca Sans to a resident artist program at Torroella de Montgri, Spain.
The series of fifteen painted pictures under the general title “A Spanish tale” describes how we got there.