A BOOK PRESENTING A SELECTION OF CHRISTOS ZAKOPOULOS’ CREATIVE WORK FROM 1990 TO 2023.
Christos Zakopoulos is primarily a persistent and insightful observer of the world that surrounds us, starting from its natural part, which has not been altered by human intervention, and continuing to the artificial environment, that is, that which we construct every day with our actions.
As the late Michalis Arapoglou said, “everything begins with observation” and this dimension is also the beginning of the creative work which is the essential basis on which the vision of an artist develops. The artist becomes thus automatically an ambassador of the inexhaustible creation of nature and at the same time, willingly or not, its translator. The skill of this translation is the core of the creative work that is thus completed by the coexistence of parallel expressions, natural and artificial.
In the artistic work of C. Zakopoulos one finds the scope of a journey that begins with the raw materials that nature herself creates, but also with artificial human materials that nature has mutated. Other times the beginning is made with something purely artificial which, through the composition process, turns into a work with clear references to biological entities of this planet or even beyond. It is not so improbable that the result takes a form that seems alien, as in the series with the Gamosaurs (by the same artist), those fantastic creatures that balance between our own Universe and another, imaginary one.
The beginning of C. Zakopoulos’ artistic journey clearly took place within the earth’s natural environment, with the elaborate collection of naturally treated stones and wood which were and still are a primal source of inspiration for his creative work. Then, with endless patience and perseverance, sculpting the raw material and highlighting its potential, he gradually gives shape to the object of his occupation, always with respect to the supreme creator: nature herself. Abstract forms, but also with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic references, the works take on a unique character over time, which stands out for its expressive ability through the use of diverse materials. The choice of raw material is quickly expanded by adding to the stone and wood decommissioned and discarded metal and plastic components, which lend a more playful character that reflects the artist’s intentions. The ever-growing collection of materials and objects is an inexhaustible source of inspiration and challenge for new work that translates as creative play in his hands. His laboratory thus resembles that of a genius inventor who has the ability to give life to unique beings and situations, both thanks to his ingenuity and
his endless imagination. Bodies of strange creatures give way to busts of enigmatic animals and exotic birds forage in the company of metallic insects on mechanical flowers - and that’s just the beginning! The universe of C. Zakopoulos seems to have no limits, springing through forests and stone slopes, emerging from the depths of the sea and flying over human and alien civilizations.
His source of inspiration are the experiences he acquires, both in the places where he lives and works, as well as his various travels around the world. Many of his works though are temporary, located in usually isolated places, like seashores and mountain slopes, with the beings who live there or pass through being the only fortunate spectators. Floatsam material, washed out of the sea, become fantastic totems and stones balanced on peculiar rocks turn into modern menirs of forgotten cultures. However, it is not rare that pieces of these remote places end up in the workshop and thus become the occasion for another project that pays tribute to the magic of nature.
The reference to man, on the other hand, remains a dominant element which, however, does not have a strictly anthropocentric character. Man exists in the work of C. Zakopoulos as a part and at the same time multiple expression of nature, as creator and subject together. The creator thus breathes life into a work that is human-encompassing while at the same time purely natural. A perpetual play of composition and imagination where magic is contained in the narrative of the work as much as in its spontaneous construction. An art journey, direct but also meaningful, that allows the viewer to understand it and be transported with it beyond the narrow limits of the visual narrative. A multidimensional, as well as original, work that is a sincere artistic expression capable of teaching us the joy of creation.
Thanos Zakopoulos -Creator & Thinker
αναδημιουργείται
I have known Christos for many (psychological) years, that is, two thousand three hundred and forty (calendar) days as I write this, when a good man and mutual friend of ours introduced us. This time can be considered sufficient or insufficient to get to know a person, and Christos, as always, can support both of these arguments. On the one hand, he has nothing to hide from you, because he eloquently and willingly opens his heart telling you his beliefs and feelings. On the other hand, every day you refute this opinion, finding that something new has eluded you or that he keeps it well hidden in the depths of his soul, until he judges that the moment has come to allow himself, each time a new, confession. This is credited to his positive atttributes because he is unpredictable and leaves you surprised. Also this or any of his other quirks are not enough to prevent you from sketching the outline of a “creator”.
So Christos is a special person, who is destined not only to “see”, but also to “look” at nature, to observe her, to be taught by her and its phenomena and to offer her spontaneously and lavishly, but also to consciously dedicate his own creation to her. He is thus characterized by the following [as an objective (!) observer and his friend sees and cites]: He is fascinated with anything and, in particular, with what is here attributed to him. All is considered in the superlative degree, a sample of the very small units he uses for his quantitative approaches. Conversing with him, you hear him, captivated, say that every day nature unfolds before you her endless gifts and confides to you, sparingly, some of her secrets, leaving the discovery of many others to your natural abilities. You will also hear him emphasize how many things you see, but also how few of nature’s creations you really and inquiringly look at. Finally, he will describe to you the waterfall as a symbol of our feelings, the simple and humble wild flower as a colorful palette and the wooden corpse, washed up by the sea, as an alien bust that within one of its holes pulsates a pale light of some otherworldly life. He never buys his raw materials, regardless of the specifics of form and origin. He searches for them, discovers them and temporarily borrows them from nature, to which he attributes them reformed and revitalized.
His undoubted commitment to what he deals with, allows him to handle with difficulty or ease, but always with precision, the materials, generously, offered to him as authentic or processed, by his environment. Thanks to his broad culture, he sees an endless and misunderstood world opening up before him, the world of the “neglected”. Natural materials, once transformed into “useful entities”, are condemned to add, decommissioned and thrown here and there, their own burden to the results of our indifference to the environment in which we, in turn, are condemned to live. Against this disorganization, he approaches, not as an indifferent and uninvolvedobserver,butasacreator,whocanappreciatethem,understandthemandintegrate them into his “materials” - as he refers to the raw material of his works- and, subsequently, to impart to them a new form of “life”, as a counterweight to their, until recently, mere “usability”. Parts of metal and plastic, delivered to his hands and his inspiration, are transformed into new symbols of the everyday synthesis between physical and human creative intervention. He captures the way of his daily life and habits in the method of selection, processing, composition, recomposition and production of his work.
He is the epitomy of contrast. Frugal and exuberant, careful and fearless, restrained and impulsive, prudent and imaginative. He searches, with psychosis and passion, for the mentally complex, which can be simply expressed. He dislikes imitation and mannerism, but brings out the meaning, the hidden sense, everywhere, the immaterial within the material. He seeks austerity and completely avoids imitation, which is often accompanied by unjustified and even unimaginable researches and additions.
And all this, of course, happens sometimes in a small, for the extent of Christos, space and sometimes in an immense one. Indeed, on the one hand, if one visits the place where he works every day -that is, when he is not covered in soil plucking weeds in his vegetable garden- he will believe that he is in the “sanctuary”, as he self-mockingly calls it, of an initiate with the possibility and ability to represent unique beings and situations, derived from his experiences and his imaginative approach to his environment. There he combines the natural with the artificial, the revealed truth with the everyday honesty, composing the extraordinary. But alas, in the unit of space, as he understands it, and the quantitative results of its comparison with reality, how could such a small laboratory be enough. His inspirations and his works can and should be implemented everywhere. He expresses himself when he intervenes in the unfinished -or even in those he considers as incomparable- natural creations and by reconstructing them, he adds some of his own, ephemeral, works, intending each of them as a response to the corresponding challenge and invitation posed to himself by nature. He thus embodies, in our view, the fact that “nature is recreated by the works of her works.” In this way, Christos does not limit himself to admire nature as a creator, but develops his own competitive tendencies. He does not deal with her in the workshop and the exhibition, but also out there”, where many of his works and their materials no longer adorn foreign and unknown landscapes, but the very space to which they naturally belong to.
He penetrates nature, conductively and abstractively, isolating its dominant details and emerges with them inductively in a magnifying way.
All this, this specific champion of creation, approaches them again in two opposite (how else could he do it otherwise?) and successively realized ways. The first leads from the complex to the marginally simple. He analyzes, passes by what he considers indifferent and comes to the essential and analytically marginal details in the structure he studies. He then self-triggers and begins the synthetic return journey, at the end of which these modest entities have been transformed and magnified in significance. A single (eye) socket in an otherwise completely abstract bust, empty or filled with one of our favorite childhood playthings, a marble, can emit, as an eye-transmitter now, all the hidden light of life, which was concealed within this primordial -once worked by nature and now by Christos- lifeless piece of wood (if anyone doubts this he is encouraged to look up the etymology of the term “art” in the very next lines).
The descent into the bowels of the souless turned into a life-bearing ascent. He does not create on demand, so he expresses his own feelings and, secretly and selectively, the unexpressed feelings of others.
Finally, we will dwell on an insignificant, but particularly important (this Christos!), detail and for its reference we will now turn to art terminology and etymology, which we have avoided, painfully and diligently, until now. Art is a communication. In its framework, a persontransmitter wants to transmit his feeling, through a message to another person-receiver. And if this approach is true, in its simple form, then art is the transmission of a message from the transmitter to a specific receiver and nothing else. All the rest, regarding this term, are additions and extensions.
Christos therefore, with his work, does not accept to be turned into a manipulator of foreign emotions, at least unintentionally. He is full of his own feelings, he knows and expresses the feelings of his intimate and other close to him people and whenever he decides to communicate one or some of these “messages” - “works of art” to his also own, accepted and approved receivers the he does so spontaneously and not on demand.
Alexandros Aliefs - Architect & Scholar
When Thanos told me “I’m preparing a book about my father, I want you to write two words about his work” I felt great emotion but also a form of indescribable embarrassment...
Christos Zakopoulos, a man of special quality dimensions, an exemplary husband, an inspiring father, an excellent scientist - ophthalmologist, my Friend encompassing all the characteristics of Friendship. Through his daily journey to the depth of the eyes, the click happened and he saw the world so differently, so wonderfully, with his own artistic dimension. It is the artist who, with his wonderful works, perhaps without realizing it, gives matter its eternal dimension.
Abandoned objects, garbage of our industrial age, rotten wood, rusted tools, humble stones, in his hands take on life, harmonious power, become incomparable works of art that any accomplished artist would envy. You will find Christos in his home, but also in the sea and in the mountains and you will recognize his passing because everywhere in nature he leaves his artistic imprint which is so special and recognizable. I am glad that my friend gave me so many sensational joys with his visual creations.
Evangelos Golas - Doctor & Spiritual Guide
ΕΡΓΑ ARTWORKS
