Beloved imagination,
what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.
This series of works focuses on the faces of people I know well. This does not make it anthropocentric or place it in the category of the portrait.
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The faces that appear contribute as a springboard; their character, temperament and characteristics are nothing more or less than putting into the text of your automatic writing a word that begins with 'o' or 't' -when a lull pushes the creative act to a pause; a pretext for the latent state -a 'new experience in a special context' as Donald Winicott puts it. The openness of the abstract world of the work, in synergy with the capacity of the human intellect to excel and feel at ease within the world of objects as Huizinga mentions it, contributes to a seemingly aimless state in which the personality has no clear position.
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My works are not experiments as opposed to automatic writing -because that would require me to follow a certain theory (or mannerism), established and ready to be executed! It would be a simple validation of whether my capabilities and expertise go that far, yes or no. The plasticity of the arts, the plasticity of the raw materials, the practice and discoveries of artistic creation, for me it is precisely this state that makes my eyes open wide. There I see what Breton described as, a little light flickering away in the utter darkness. The art I pursue is in the process of this non-experimentation.
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The drawing always starts from a chromatic condition. The basic characteristics of the painting are determined by the mood and impression of the future depicted individual - one could say it is the inversion of trying to introspect someone's character based on their hands or shoes; the game of ten questions about how you know this person.
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Once the shape and size of the canvas and the basic colours of the work have been chosen, a process - similar to Gutai and Polokic dripping - begins with aqueous paints, mixed in a sprayer or any other container occasionally offered. The canvas is spread out on the floor and walking on it without shoes and clothes - for minimum friction and absorption - in a state of automatism I create wrinkles in the canvas and start pouring the paint and testing the materialities of the colour lake beds. I can never know the exact result, the beds take two to three days to dry. I have a feeling, a general idea, based on the quality of the material and the depth of the bed. Then, I await the ecstatic revelation of the truth of the work.
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According to Clyfford Still the project should have been finished. In my opinion, this is where the part where a glass of whisky is not needed begins. The canvas is lifted from the floor and placed on the wall; after it is well stretched and stabilised, I am left to look at it... It can take from a few minutes to a few days. In the hazy dream of colour patches, morphs and forms of objects reach the surface, where I stay following the plasticity of each bed. A state that, mentally searching for compositional value and sensually approximating to teaomancy, results in the final form of the painting; clear, almost absolute. It will be barely distorted, in order not to serve a truth, but to allow the process of creation the element of surprise!
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Now the basis and the composition have been set. I don't make drafts beyond a few for each work stamp-sized, symbolic of the composition, for fear of forgetting the image that emerged; in the end, I never look at them. It is worth commenting here that Melissa's sleeve was such a strong idea that it even intruded my dreams. Beyond that there are a few sketches of objects obscure in design, for one reason or another, to me.
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The standard drafts and sketches are replaced by a composition in photoshop. I look for footage of images that reflect the idea of the painting or photograph the subjects in person. The results are spastic and serve as a guide, in effect the rough collages are applied in harmony with the basic matierra within their own space; in a way like the individual elements in Une Semaine de bonté ou les sept éléments capitaux (A Week of Goodness or the Seven Deadly Elements) and Max Ernst's other collage works. The cut-out material is transformed schematically and colourfully to fit into the work, then I print it and work with it close at hand.
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The technical practice and the play of the material begins with the act of painting. Even if I know the result, the way is unknown to me. Any pictorial element is nothing more than patches of colour emerging from the previous patches, thanks to randomness as much as induction. Decision, execution, trial and error, until the level of the image I have in mind is reached; this is the given painting.
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The works are painted with acrylics and then with oils. In addition to brushes, spatulas and pastels - I try various materials casually and daily to achieve textures and pattern, both controlled and accidental, where it is impossible to reproduce them in any other way; for example, imprints of crumpled paper and glass bottles are often found within the present works. What a fun (in the sense given by Johann Huizinga) material was the dried orange slices in Fotis work! In all honesty every object, none excluded, is a valid option.