Beyond Ancient Space at CAN gallery, Athens

Post-Idolatry

What triggers me quite much when I hear Yorgos talking about his work is the terms he often uses such as psychedelic, transcendental, illusional, et cetera, and the fact that such terms and notions bring me in a sort of an awkward position as they tend to be connected with something supernatural or mystical. 

Painting seems to have long departed from any connection to spirituality or theosophy, and any approach towards such notions today seems rather precarious. “Höhere Wesen befahlen: rechte obere Ecke schwarz malen!” (Higher Powers Command: Paint the Upper Right Hand Corner Black!) had Polke written on his 1969 homonymous painting, and in this way even though the ‘Higher Powers’ were questioned the upper right corner became indeed painted black. 

Approaches on such notions are often today in a humorous way, and at the same time we may hold a critical and precautious stance towards them we can’t actually –at least not entirely- deny or repudiate them. 

But what happens then in the case of Yorgos, is it indeed in search of something mystical or spiritual? 

Yorgos works in a highly intuitional way, sometimes under the influence of heavy metal music, and quite often without having direct control of the result of his painting –the latter comes through the processes he follows in his work, in what he calls ‘Blind painting’. Though, as painting in a subconscious way belongs rather to the myth, the endeavor of working in a highly intuitional way goes down to a play between allowing and restraining. What fascinates me in the work of Yorgos is that he manages to enhance it with a feeling of a different dimension. This though occurs not through the heaviness of the quest of something that aspires to be spiritual but rather comes through a more loose way, and the feeling of a different dimension mainly stems from a sense of space that is created within his images. Considering the different series of his work, it may either take the form of a landscape –through the horizontal, spray painted, blended stripes of different colors; or through a form of a fragmented space –through the various masked layers of paint that simultaneously create depth in the image and are also projected towards the beholder. The space in the latter becomes vibrating and this I find an attribute of his more recent ‘painterly’ works, as the more gestural forms become floating in a kind of an absurd landscape-space. 

This sense of a fragmented, vibrating space –what gives me the feeling of a different dimension- is a significant part of his work and probably the reason he likes using terms as the ones I mentioned above. It also shows his attitude towards his work but also towards painting in general –a quest to become a passageway to something ‘Higher’ while this is seen in a more light and loose manner.

Giorgos Kontis