ALIMOS has gained new artistic activity in the past few years, especially after the establishment of its Municipal Art Gallery. But now, there’s another new art kid on the block here – Thalia Gallery. Audrey and Dimitris, founders of Thalia Gallery, are glad to announce a new art exhibition, on the subject  of the sea. The exhibition takes its title from  the famous saying of Heraclitus “Τὰ πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει” – “Everything flows, nothing stands still”, and opens to the public on Wednesday, June 7, 7pm (Thalia Gallery is on Metamorfoseos 1, 17455 Alimos). During the opening event, visitors will experience the sea paintings of artists Marina Syntelis and Fay Anagnostopoulou, complemented also by the music of harpist Lina Rodopoulou, plus poems and creative cuisine.

The two Greek women artists will draw you into their own unique inner sea and share with you the experience of fluidity, their feelings, and their perception of the watery element. Their artworks are paired with poems to invite you to dream and feel the flow of your inner sea. You will have the opportunity to discover their art and their great creative processes that will offer you an amazing visual experience. To conclude your experience, you will also discover a wall dedicated to facts about the sea to better understand our reality and the changes surrounding it.

Audrey and Dimitris look forward to welcoming you and to offer you this new experience which focuses on the senses and which flows. As for the previous exhibition hosted at Thalia Gallery, 5% of the sales will be donated to support the institution of Agios Andreas.

The exhibition ‘Everything Flows, Nothing Stands Still’, runs till July 30.

A few words about the artists:

Fay Anagnostopoulou

The Sea. 

A three-letter word that evokes so many thoughts, imageries, emotions. “Πυρ, γυνή και θάλαττα” – fire, woman and sea – were the three most intense elements, according to the Ancient Greek poet Meander. We are all connected to the sea in some way. Whether it is memories from travels, living somewhere by it, or even making a living off it…so each one of us has unique references and creates different mental icons.

For me, being very much an urbanite, the sea is perhaps the one and only natural element I feel a connection to. It offers me a sense of belonging and contentment, hence I feel privileged to be living by it year-round. Moreover, it’s the only natural scenery that keeps me visually engaged constantly. I could not sit and look at a forest or a field for more than a few minutes, but I can gaze at the sea and its continual play with the sand, the wind, and the sunlight for hours.

These exact feelings and images are what I have attempted to emit in this series. The constant change of a seascape, by creating patchworked paintings representing different time fragments of the same view. The interaction between water, light and earth through many layers of colour and textures. The sea in different geographic locations, by depicting both aerial and sectional views of different bodies of water. And finally, the effect that human activity can impose, resulting in a very different landscape than the ideal visual association when we hear the word, Sea.

I hope you can participate in my journey through these art pieces, and have your own memories and emotions triggered by them.

Credit: Fay Anagnosotpoulou

Marina Syntelis

After painting Santorini and island landscapes “as time progressed, Marina lost interest in those rooftops, and became all the more focused on what was beyond them – the sea with all its myriads of shades, light effects and rhythms. The seemingly structureless fluidity of the water became a challenge for her, to capture it and give it form and structure, to find its inner workings. Ripples and light effects danced on her canvases like mystical beings. But it was the drama of the wave, which also enticed her. The way it crashed into millions of pieces, and how she could make sense of it visually, formally, philosophically, empathetically.

Marina Syntelis’s analysis of wave structure became all the more in depth and detailed with every new painting […] where the crashing waters create misty, ethereal and elusive atmospheres. […] A Dutch fellow artist, introduced an age-old secret to her, used by the old masters to create luster, transparencies, and glowing colours in their works. There, in the depths of time, she discovered the use of pine resin, mixed with turps and linseed oil, known as a form of ‘megilp’. This medium, was used together with oils by many masters. It was a secret ingredient used by Turner, Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Rubens, in order to create fabulous glazes and dates back to the mid-15th century. […] Marina resurrected this technique (a laborious one which involves creating different ‘strengths’ of this medium, with different percentages of linseed oil/resin/turps), by placing it within a contemporary context. […] There is a power and a dynamism in Marina Syntelis’s work that harks back to Romanticism, and its awe-inspired perspective on nature, coupled with a classical search for structure and form (how can there not be? She’s Greek after all). But, there’s a contemporary feel to her painting: Is it because of the way she combines hyper realistic obsession with detail with an ethereal abstraction? Maybe in part. […]”

Credit: extract from Stella Sevastopoulos, Journalist, Artist – full text available here

• Thalia Gallery is on Metamorfoseos 1, 17455 Alimos. The exhibition with works by Marina Syntelis and Fay Anagnostopoulou runs June 7-July 30. Opening on June 7, 7pm.

‘Art Scene Athens’ is written/run by artist/journalist Stella Sevastopoulos. Dedicated to presenting what is happening on the Greek art scene (but not only), and also to giving Greek artists an international voice on the internet. For more on Stella Sevastopoulos’s art, click here