ROMA GALLERY in collaboration with the Estate of Haris Gavrilos (1957-1995) presents a retrospective exhibition of the works of the late artist. The "Closer" exhibition is the third solo exhibition organized after the artist's untimely death and includes works that highlight his research on pictorial language. Gavrilos does not study painting as a medium but as an entity and event, as a possibility. His art is experiential without being personal: "I paint me. But... I don't see me," he writes in a text about his work published in the magazine Double Image (May 1985).
The painting of Haris Gavrilos is erotic and dreamlike. Familiar with the writings of Georges Bataille and the Marquis de Sade, the artist sought to transcend the limits of representation through eroticism and dreams. His large-scale paintings celebrate physicality, sometimes overtly and sometimes suggestively. Emphasizing emotional memory and the play of light and darkness, Gavrilos attempts - in his own words - to find balance in space through different times.The figures he paints and draws are spectral, embryonic, ethereal. "Indeterminate and fluid at first, these forms are ultimately clear references to other archetypal forms with extensions in space-time, the deep past or the distant future" states the artist.
Indeed, the figures that Gavrilos paints are ectoplasmic, debased like those in El Greco's paintings. Sometimes they look like burnt matches, small and sublime, and sometimes they are spineless, supple as bent trees.In Gavrilos' painting the figures court, sleep and breathe. If in the works of the 80s his figures look like shadows, referring to schematic forms of ancient sculpture, in the last paintings they are clearly more stylized: now they have a face and distinct features, they hug suffocatingly and dream incessantly, and even in different times . It is thus implied that Gavrilos' work is based on the painter's love game with the painting itself.
Haris Gavrilos was born in Tripoli, Arcadias in 1957 and passed away in Athens in 1995. He studied painting and drawing at Art School of the Athens Technicl Univeristy (1978-1983, Workshop Dimitris Mytaras and Demosthenes Kokkinidis) and attended scenography courses at the same school (1982-83, Workshop Vassilis Vasiliadis). During his life he held three solo exhibitions: Psychiko Art Gallery (1985), Medusa Art Gallery (1992) and Olga Georgantea Gallery (1993). In 2003 the gazonrouge gallery organized his solo exhibition. He participated in the following group exhibitions: Young Greek artists: A selection from the Vorre Museum, traveling exhibition within the framework of "Athens - Cultural Capital of Europe" (1985), Newest searches - The adventure of the image and its undoing, Pieridis Gallery (1985 ), Tradition and avant-garde in Greek art, Pieridis Gallery, Patras (1986), First Document, Art magazine "Double Image", Athens (1986), Tradition and avant-garde in Greek art, Pieridis Gallery, Thessaloniki (1987), Contemporary Art Center Ileana Tounda, Athens (1989), Contemporary Greek Painting: Vlasis Frisiras Collection, Pieridis Gallery, Glyfada and the Spiritual Center of the Municipality of Athens, Athens (1991). His works are in private collections (Iola, Vorre, Pieridis, Antoniou, Frisira) and in the Rhodes Art Gallery. In 2022, the Art Gallery of the Municipality of Athens hosted the retrospective exhibition "Haris Gavrilos: Arcadia", curated by Christoforos Marinos.Opening: Thursday, 25.1.2024, 19:00
Duration: 25.1.2024 - 27.2.2024Free entrance
For more information and material about the exhibition contact: 213 0358344, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
