“The best of 2016 – 2017”
Elli Koutsoukelli, Varvara Liakounakou
Miltos Michailidis, Yannis Kondaratos
June 15 – October 27 2017
On Thursday, June15 at 8.00 in the evening Maria Demetriades presents “The Best of 2016 – 2017” at the Medusa Art Gallery – a selection of the best works among those exhibited throughout the season
Elli Koutsoukelli exhibits large works made with charcoal on paper, on the borderline between representation and abstraction. Lines of a ceaseless, almost automatic, script depict mazy pathways of the hand, which with their traces on the white paper delineate unexplored landscapes of the mind. Koutsoukelli draws images void of time, whose reference to an invented landscape genre is not generated by a portraying procedure, but from the very act of painting. For this reason, the foliage, the mountains, the waters, the rocks seem here to emerge from the subconscious, swept away by internal flows, which transform memories of landscapes into archetypal images of spiritual land.
Varvara Liakounakou exhibits a group of large works made with oil and oil pastel, as well as works on paper in ink pen. Her painting follows here numerous pathways between the black and white and intense colour, between sculptural figures and vibrating lines, attempting to unite oil works and drawings in a two-way creative procedure and style. Her usually dual figures, almost in natural size, emerge out of a monochromatic background and occur from the way space and light are handled. Without being added up, her couples are transformed into unified masses, in indivisible complexes, trying each time to render in their monolithic embrace completeness and solidity through the process of a union which is both painterly and mental.
Miltos Michailidis presents large-scale paintings depict summer landscapes with no human presence, although there are elements like buildings, buoys, marks, footprints and various traces in the sand to suggest it.
The absence of humans from the paintings make for an ambiguous imagery: Are these really places of leisure and entertainment or is it that something more sinister has occurred there?
Yannis Kondaratos in these works continues to develop further the elliptical visual language that we have come to know in previous exhibitions of his work: the overall composition is symmetrically arranged around a central axis, the contour is clear and precise, and the range of colors used alternates between subtle or more pronounced. There is an abstract element to the work that seems to thwart all attempts towards a univocal interpretation of the various forms presented. The curvilinear, organic patterns that stand out over a hazy background retain an enigmatic quality. However, in some paintings of the new series, Kondaratos introduces some narrative motives. Human figures with hidden visages are standing face to face or back to back in an ambiguous relation. It is up to the viewer to decide whether the figures and body parts are active or passive, simply observe or aim at us.
Opening hours: Tuesday – Thursday – Friday 12:00–14:00 & 19:00–21:00 Wednesday – Saturday 11:00–15:00
The Medusa Art Gallery will be closed the Saturdays of June & July as well as throughout August.
