THE SOLO exhibition Odyssey, by Markos Kampanis is currently running at the Benaki Museum’s Ghika Gallery in the heart of Athens. The exhibition is co-organized by the Benaki Museum and the Society for Social Work and Culture – EKEP and will run to April 27, 2025. It is jointly curated by Konstantinos Papachristou (Benaki Museum) and Manos Dimitrakopoulos (EKEP).

The Homeric epic has been a source of inspiration for Markos Kampanis for years. In 2018, he began the creation of a large series of related works, twenty-two of which are included in the exhibition at the Ghika Gallery. This is a single pictorial composition in progress, inspired by the unparalleled expressive power of the Homeric text.

Markos Kampanis’s pictorial journey is based on a second geography, the product of the painter’s imagination and art, which in a way speaks to the epic. Kampanis uses a variety of media to create the places of his own wanderings: Pencil, charcoal, acrylic paint, ink, extensive use of the collage technique on paper or wood. The starting point of the journey is the exquisite 15th-century manuscript Odyssey from the Harley Manuscript Collection of the British Library.

The artist digitally printed the 24 rhapsodies, and on them painted Odyssean places, unbuilt and built, confirmed and unconfirmed. Around the perimeter, eight small book-works are arranged, each of which is related to a specific narrative or rhapsody of the epic: Maps 1, Oenops Pontus I, Hades, Country of the Cyclopes, Telemachus I and II, The Palaces I and II. The viewer is guided by the words to the colors and shapes that substitute for them, being called to see and not to read. The book-works are framed by real and invented maps with the course of Odysseus and Telemachus: Maps 1 and 2, Odyssey-Map I-V, Rocks.

Alongside the works of Markos Kampanis, an oil painting, drawings and sculptures by Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, from the collection of the Gallery, are exhibited. The viewer easily recognizes the affinity of the artistic search: in the works of both painters, the external geometry that structures things harmoniously touches the internal geometry that shapes the soul. The painterly gesture evolves into an endless spiritual longing.

Markos Kampanis was born in Athens in 1955. He studied painting in London, and works in Athens. His painting is dominated by variety: in themes, morphological explorations and techniques. In addition to painting, he practices engraving, ecclesiastical mural painting, and illustrates books. Since 1979, his works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and cultural institutions, in Greece and abroad. In 2024, the National Library of Greece dedicated a major retrospective exhibition to his work.

• The Ghika Gallery of the Benaki Museum is on 3 Kriezotou St, Tel 210-361-5702. Open Thurs 12.00-20.00, Fri, Sat, Sun 10.00-18.00, closed Mon, Tues, Wed. Ticket prices at 5 euros.

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