Yiannis’ artistic work has always been linked to drawing and painting. The last few years he has used a personal technique, which is painting with oil colors on plain paper conditioned with cassia.* By using plain paper, which is a fragile material and it can easily be destroyed, and by leaving the rough gesture of the dark brown brushstrokes in full view, he tries, on one hand, to expose the ephemeral of art and existence itself, while on the other to distort the boundaries of the painted work in general. Cassia gives the possibility to create in vacuum, in a non-place, but also due to its effect on the plain paper, lights and shadows, shapes and forms emerge, giving the impression of an embossed scenery.
His themes are mainly anthropocentric and figurative. Creatures distorted or fragmented, surrounded by various objects, mostly irrelevant to each other – at least seemingly – which construct awkward compositions imbued with surreal elements and symbolic meanings. Images plucked from the subconscious, are one of his most important starting points for each work. It forms an “automatic” procedure guiding the outcome into fulfillment.
The unexpected, the unknown and the absurd are things that always fascinate and thrive him. Through it, Yiannis tries to investigate inmost concerns, personal but also eternally human, such as hope, fear, obsession, death. In addition he is interested in translating the relationship between the individual and society. How this struggle is or can be depicted through the absurd. How the absurd ultimately tries to explain the world and how consciousness of mortality, operates as a starting point on the need for communication and consequently creation.
Beginning from Baroque and its drama, passing, with a peek at the romanticism of Symbolism, Yiannis finds himself confronted with “god is dead”, its nihilism, the relentless moral vacuum that it bequeathed and of course the new possibilities and potentials it has provided. This leads me to DADA’ s “art is dead”, where nihilism takes the reins of art driving it, eventually, into subconscious quests, through Surrealism, suggesting an internal gaze – hand in hand with the relatively new science of psychology. Reinstating the need to accept and explain the absurd, the impossible and the unfair, lying hidden in all aspects of life. Here he finds himself intrigued by the way sociopolitical conflict leads us – as the chargeable force of all art and critical thinking – to the radical avant-garde movements, such as CoBrA and Situationists International.
All these personal and artistic concerns shape the content of Yiannis’ work and, simultaneously, are the basic contents of the communication he wishes to achieve with the public.
*Cassia is a material used for painting wood. Usually has a dark brown color.