THE DIVIDE between artists who still use traditional artistic mediums and those in favour of a more conceptual art, has created two different camps in the art world of today, even in Greece. The former are considered more as craftsmen, criticized for being ‘stuckist’, and bogged down with capturing light effects, creating illusions of reality, …
SYMBOLISM is a movement which has influenced the whole course of modern and contemporary art, while its roots go back to ancient times. The group of artists known as ARC (Art Revisited Collective), along with some guest artists, have gotten together to create the show ‘New Symbols’, at the Chili Art Gallery in Thissio. This …
DUTCH artist Sef Berkers escaped the Covid pandemic and the lockdown in New York just in time after his art exhibition took place in the Big Apple. His works however haven’t made it back yet. The experience of this city changed his life and his art in unexpected ways. Back in his studio in Venlo, …
ARTIST, writer, and artist’s model Sue Tilley has had a colourful life to say the least: from dividing her time between her day job as benefits supervisor and her night job at Leigh Bowery’s ‘Taboo’ night club, Tilley has also performed in music videos, modelled for artist Lucian Freud, taught art, and has had her …
THE GROUP art exhibition ‘TAR & FEATHERS’ will be inaugurated on Monday, June 29, noon till 9pm at the Hellenic-French Association, and will run from June 29-July 11. Dimitris Lazarou is responsible for the concept, organization and communication of the exhibition and art historian Olga Latousaki for its curation. A total of 26 contemporary …
FOUNDED by lawyer/collector Philippos Tsichritzis, the architectural beauty of the Tsichritzis Foundation for the Visual Arts has proven to be a haven for cultural creativity since 1999 when it first opened to the public. From June 25-July 25, it will also be overrun by cats, dogs, and all sorts of other animals, as depicted …
‘FLANEUR: Walking unseen in the city’ is the title of the upcoming exhibition at the Arte Visione gallery in Athens. The exhibition is organised/curated by art historians Evangelia Kairaki and Maria-Moscha Karatzoglou. The French term ‘Flaneur’ (or ‘Flaneuse’) is hard to translate accurately, because it belongs to a certain place in history and literature. The …
The Herod Atticus Odeon has seen some interesting art interventions around its premises, but never actually inside the ancient theatre. But this summer will change that, with the work of Dionisis Kavallieratos. NEON and the Athens & Epidaurus Festival are pleased to announce a newly commissioned site-specific installation by Greek artist Dionisis Kavallieratos at the …
CULTURAL EVENTS are starting to rev up in Athens these days, and art exhibitions are back on the agenda. FokiaNou Art Space is therefore pleased to present “Interstitial Places”, a two-person exhibition by Jane Grover and Dimitra Maltabe. In order to allow for social distancing, the opening will take place over two evenings, the 11th …
Stella Sevastopoulos caught up with artist Marina Syntelis, who found herself creating some interesting commissions during the lockdown, for customers abroad. MARINA SYNTELIS has been hailed as one of the world’s finest hyper realistic seascape painters of today. Her powerful wave images have become especially popular over the past two years, and her rising recognition …
Stella Sevastopoulos catches up with Kate Horti, a sculptor with an ecological conscience who enjoys transforming the industrial form of the bicycle into animals and insects (among other subject-matter), giving it a new lease of life. THE BICYCLE was originally invented in 1839 by the Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan. Since then it has become …
Stella Sevastopoulos talks to Panagiotis Voulgaris, an artist-traveller, whose special relationship with nature and the urban environment have inspired his ephemeral artistic interventions. He is also the co-director of FokiaNou art space together with artist Mary Cox. PANAGIOTIS Voulgaris creates monuments to nature that revere the natural environment to such an extent, that they …
Stella Sevastopoulos talks to artist Margarita Radeva about the pros and cons of following an art career today, her experience as an art education professional, and more… THERE are many who teach art, but not many who do it properly. In many schools, art is considered of no importance, hence an excuse for the art …
Marina Syntelis is an artist whose exploration of the power of the sea, has attracted the interest of many a collector over the past few years in particular. In the UK, she is represented by the Papillon Gallery. But the creative journey that got her there – to her awe-inspiring renditions of the structures …
According to Stavros Mihalarias, a prominent restorer and art dealer of Greece, the Greek artists are the bad boys of art, because they don’t play by the rules. To find out more, read my interview with him, where we also discuss his relationship with the recently deceased artist Takis, who’s show is on at …
Stella Sevastopoulos celebrates Mother’s Day with a homage to mother artists, their trials and tribulations, in the history of art and in modern-day Greece: The truth is that most women artists have had a pretty tough time trying to penetrate the glass ceilings of the art world in general – a chauvinistic, male-dominated profession up …
Stella Sevastopoulos of ‘Art Scene Athens’ talks to Greek-Australian artist Chrys Roboras who has managed to spread her wings and exhibit around the world, with great success. CHRYS ROBORAS loves to place the human figure in vast, colourful semi-abstract landscapes. In some works her figures are depicted as an outline which has been filled in …
CAN MARBLE be stripped bare of its past glory? Can it be disassociated from its ancient associations, and be re-cast into a contemporary role, as a harbinger of the ugly truth and reality of today’s society? “It’s just a material”, argues artist Andreas Lolis, whose current in-situ exhibition at the British School at Athens (which …
STELLA SEVASTOPOULOS interviews Rosalind Forster, an artist who has divided her time between England’s Derbyshire and Greece’s Spetses, creating unique watercolours and linocut prints in the process: EVERY now and then, you discover a new artist, and a whole new way of seeing the world through their work. I had such an experience recently, …
Stella Sevastopoulos of ‘Art Scene Athens’, talks to acclaimed Greek artist Chryssa Verghi and gallery director Natalia Markou on their art escapades in the Middle East: WITH the Greek crisis still crippling the population, it’s no wonder that many have looked towards the Middle East for a better economic future, including some Greek artists. One …
‘Art Scene Athens’ talks to artist Lila Papoula about her exhibition ‘Walls that were hiding our faces’, at the Evripides Gallery, which runs till December 9: IN THE EIGHTIES, artist Lila Papoula searched the streets for derelict walls, which she photographed. She was drawn to these remaining fragments of people’s lives, not only because of …
‘Art Scene Athens’ talks to artist Maria Hadjiandreou about her new exhibition entitled ‘The Gaze’, at Gallery 7, in which the artist not only captures the character of her sitters but also searches deep into their psyche: MARIA Hadjiandreou’s work of the last two years are portraits inspired by the artist’s heightened sensibility. Whilst perusing …
‘Art Scene Athens’ catches up with Dimitrios Antonitsis – a curator and artist who has been illustriously active on the Greek art scene for 20 years now, and the mastermind behind the show ‘Integral II’, at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Centre: I first met curator/artist Dimitrios Antonitsis two decades ago, when I had just started …
‘Art Scene Athens’ speaks with artist Kostis Velonis at his exhibition opening, to get some feedback on his new installation project, commissioned by NEON Organisation, that explores the intriguing sociopolitical and personal history of a beautiful neoclassical home in the heart of Athens: EACH HOUSE has its story – a narrative about its many occupants …
SINCE its inauguration two years ago, the Evripides Gallery has brought a breath of fresh air to the cultural scene of Athens’ Kolonaki classiness. Housed in the former ‘House of Cyprus’ (the historic cultural hub of the Cypriot Embassy), the Evripides Gallery has been founded by collectors Kostas and Nasia Evripides, and their daughter Eirene. …
GOING to an art show, or even trying to practice art, isn’t really top on the list of ‘things to do’ for many people. And that’s a shame, because art has a lot to offer, for people of all ages and classes. In fact recent studies argue that the homo sapiens were more advanced than …
“The whole world is indebted to Greece” stated the famed Argentinian artist Marta Minujin after her performance at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (or EMST), in Athens. Entitled ‘Payment of the Greek Debt to Germany with Olives and Art’, the performance took place at EMST on April 8, (the inauguration day of documenta 14), …
ZOI PAPPA has achieved what many young Greek artists are striving for these days: the growing appreciation and successful exhibiting of her work abroad. She just found out that she will be participating in the Arte Art Prize Laguna, taking place at the Arsenale of Venice (March 25 to April 9), about a month before …
LIKE HIS beloved material of glass, which he has tirelessly transformed into monumental sculptural forms, Costas Varotsos is sharp, cool and transparent – in the sense that he is unafraid to speak his mind. There are not many contemporary Greek sculptors who are also international names, however Varotsos is one of them. With his public …
I RECENTLY interviewed one of Greece’s most well-known and definitely most contemporary of artists – Eleni Mylonas – for the Athens Insider Magazine . As is the case with interviews, a lot of material remains unpublished. I felt it was a shame to let this material get lost in time, and to never be shared, because …
THE YANNIS MORALIS retrospective exhibition at the Benaki Pireos, pays hommage to this great Greek artist’s oeuvre by presenting the many sides of his creative magnificence. It traces Moralis’ mastery of many mediums, styles and forms of art: his early realistic works, his sombre portraits, still-lifes that hark back to De Chirico, works inspired by … Continue reading
THE EVRIPIDES Gallery pays hommage to one of Greece’s most inspirational creative figures, who was pivotal in the development of the decorative and applied arts in this country, via the creation of the Vakalo School of Art and Design, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. George Vakalo (1902-1991, real name George Vakalopoulos) excelled especially … Continue reading
IN THE age of the Greek crisis, some artists look further towards alternative methods of creativity and materials. Most traditional art materials are expensive, but there are also options that are free, and everywhere: arte povera was a movement that pioneered this approach in a conceptual manner, back in the Sixties and Seventies. Today, … Continue reading
“MY SOUL is often a back street on Mykonos when night begins to fall”, wrote Surrealist artist/poet Nikos Engonopoulos back in 1939. I imagine those back streets were pretty quiet in those days, and nothing like they are today, since Mykonos became Greece’s party island par excellence. But this island does have an arty side … Continue reading
Despite the hard times that Greece is (still) going through, Stella Sevastopoulos’s show ‘Greek Inspiration’ at Placebo draws from Greek nature, culture and myth, in order to look beyond the current socio/political situation and instead to imbue its visitors with a positive perspective on contemporary ‘Greekness’: Those of you who live in the Southern … Continue reading
Here’s a ‘potpourri’ of my art, inspired by Greece’s nature, light and myth… Continue reading
ATHENS continues to beguile art lovers with a wide gamut of artistic events and shows on offer. What’s more, spring is in the air, so it is a perfect time to take to the streets, enjoy the sun, and some art. Here’s a potpourri of what’s on offer (see also ‘February’s fab 5 (+1)’ for … Continue reading
HERE’S a ‘petit’ potpourri for February, which presents the diverse range of art on show in Athens at the moment: from historic naval battles to contemporary bearded provocation. There are many more quality exhibitions around town of course worth seeing, so I’ve also added another five shows in pictures at the end, for your perusal. … Continue reading
THE WORKS of acclaimed writer Michel Fais become the inspiration for eleven painters and a photographer to create art, the results of which can be found at the Sotiris Felios Collection: ELEVEN painters and one photographer draw inspiration from the writings of Michel Fais. The result? Some motivated, mysterious, thought-provoking art works, that make up … Continue reading
Here are two events for Saturday, December 9, that are one of a kind (and pretty contrasting!): a live painting performance, and a Pop-up show for one evening only: Sianti’s Xmas special A SHOW of small works by the gallery’s collaborators, plus a live painting show is what’s in store for those who visit Ikastikos … Continue reading
