Pavlos Samios does not hesitate to propound his faith in painting on canvas, which continues to offer the chance to revise the relation between reality and art, drawing elements and methods from the past of painting. Olga Mentzafou-Polyzou, Stories, big or small, 1999
264
1999, 50 × 70 cm, oil on canvas 265
2003, 30 × 21 cm, pencil on paper 2003-04, 30 × 21 cm, oil on canvas 266
Most of the time, my subjects appear “ordinary” and at first glance there’s nothing special about them. But when you start analysing them and looking at them more closely, you’ll see that behind these ordinary, unnoticed objects lies hidden an architectural composition, which lends them this mysterious feeling. Ultimately, the “subject” is the reason for creating the painting, but the painterly implications exceed it, and what was once quotidian and descriptive becomes metaphysical and eternal. P.S. Vassilis Papavassiliou, Ellinikos Vorras (Thessaloniki), 29 March 1998, p. 15
2003-04, 100 × 80 cm, oil on canvas 267
The narration of the situations to which I was led by what I see in these paintings has certain secret parts. The painter has set traps so that we can pass by them clandestinely. Haris Kabouridis, A dreamlike revelation inside and out, 2000
2003, 70 Ă— 50 cm, oil on canvas 268
2003, 120 × 120 cm, oil on canvas 269
270
How could you produce work without censoring yourself? It’s impossible! The problem is not to get rid of our negative traits, but to become aware of them, to co-exist with them so that we can improve. All stages in a person’s life, whether good or bad, co-exist; but self-criticism is necessary, because without it we wouldn’t get anywhere. P.S. Zo (Komotini), Spring 2007
2003-04, 80 × 100 cm, oil on canvas
2003, 100 × 70 cm,
oil on canvas 271
I don’t believe that an artist must sit quietly. Each material draws you towards different paths and augurs new projects, while giving you the opportunity to explore it. P.S. Mary Adamopoulou, Ta Nea, 1 August 2007
1990, 18 Ă— 14 cm, watercolour on paper 272
1990, 116 × 89 cm,
oil on canvas 273
274
1990, 200 × 190 cm, oil on canvas
However, the theme of the card game began differently. I laid colour on a white table. Then I got the idea for the baize and the decks of cards. P.S. Amanda Mihalopoulou, Kathimerini, 15 March 1991
1989, 60 Ă— 38 cm, oil on canvas
1990, 32 Ă— 54 cm, oil on canvas 275
276
1990, 225 × 225 cm, oil on canvas
1991, 227 × 195 cm,
oil on canvas 277
278
1990, 100 × 100 cm, oil on canvas
1990, 55 × 33 cm, oil on canvas
1990, 120 × 120 cm, oil on canvas
Indistinct stories, slices, fragments, miracles giving shape to the unseen like a wordplay stammering the ineffable, repeating it, thwarting it… now… then… it comes it goes, a game, a detail, an encounter, a borderline in the wind of memory, suspended… to pause at fractions of light and chasms filled with warmth, intensity, daring. Dimitris Kraniotis, Self-contained stories, 1991
279
280
1991, 200 × 200 cm, oil on canvas
281
1989, 200 × 200 cm, oil on canvas
1989, 100 × 70 cm, acrylic marouflage
282
1989, 100 × 70 cm, acrylic marouflage
1989, 100 × 70 cm, acrylic marouflage
1989, 100 × 70 cm, acrylic marouflage
I have something on my mind and I work with that. I cannot paint when I start on a painting; the problem at first is what to do. I have to find a subject. My work has to do with the cobbler, with women. One of my projects was made up of little stories. I’m a painter who paints with a story in mind. So when I have a story, I try to see how best to depict it. P.S. 283
1989-90, 50 Ă— 35 cm, watercolour on paper 284
1993, 80 × 100 cm, encaustic on cloth, The crush 285
My God, the way he’s staring... He opens his arms and pulls me in. He starts moving to the rhythm of a tango. A single body with four legs. Maria Daliani, An untitled story inspired by the painting of Pavlos Samios, 1998
1991, 80 × 65 cm, oil on canvas
1991, 14 × 19 cm, watercolour on paper 1991, 14 × 19 cm, watercolour on paper 1991, 14 × 19 cm, watercolour on paper 1991, 25 × 20 cm, watercolour on paper 286
He immerses us in an internal, nighttime atmosphere, the air full of smoke, with diffuse light, bars, references to old American movies, to the warmth and intensity of the old cafés of the 1960s. Wax coated paintings, which are not made to be viewed from afar but to enter the home. A central image and often scenes painted around it that tell a story or prompt you to make up your own. Paraskevi Katimertzi, Ta Nea, 14 March 1991
1990, 14 × 19 cm, watercolour on paper 1991, 25 × 20 cm, watercolour on paper
1991, 20 × 25 cm, watercolour on paper 287
But the artist, tall like the “heroes” of his self-contained stories, sits easily, like a model in one of his own paintings, on the steps of the Zoumboulakis Gallery. He speaks about his life simply, as if narrating a story about “studies” in art, love, Athens, Paris: “At the School of Fine Arts my teachers were Nikolaou and Moralis. I consider them my spiritual fathers, as I do Tsarouchis and Hadjidakis. After all, it was with them that I would stay up all night at the cafés, learning how to think, not what to think.” Amanda Mihalopoulou, Kathimerini, 15 March 1991
1992, 30 × 21 cm, watercolour on paper
1992, 30 × 21 cm, watercolour on paper
1991, 25 × 20 cm, watercolour on paper
1991, 25 × 20 cm, watercolour on paper
288
1991, 120 × 120 cm, oil on canvas
289
1990, 150 × 150 cm, oil on canvas 290
Pavlos Samios draws his own narrative material from everyday life, which is often transformed into everyday madness. Narration means action, dialogue, drama, sparring, interaction and transaction, love, and the exchange of gestures and glances. Narration also presupposes a stage set occupied by the appropriate apparatus and signs. Marina Lambraki-Plaka, A native precursor of Modernism, 2002
1997, 62 Ă— 31 cm, fresco on plywood
291
When you start out to paint something, the idea is like lava, lacking form. A situation that’s alive; that burns, but has no form. So, we search for the form to give to the sensation we feel. For me, every exhibition means giving form to this intensity. And behind the form you feel, you must feel the living painting. We see this also in tradition. In the Kouroi, the ancient statues, the Byzantine icons. That’s the difference between great art and “ephemeral” art. P.S. 1990, 27 × 20 cm, watercolour on paper
1990, 32 × 24 cm, watercolour on paper 292
1990, 27 × 20 cm, watercolour on paper
1990, 32 × 24 cm, watercolour on paper
Fivos Sakalis, Gynaika, June 2006
1990, 32 × 24 cm, watercolour on paper
293
1990, 120 × 120 cm, oil on canvas
2008, 110 × 100 cm, acrylic on canvas 294
2012, 120 × 105 cm, acrylic on canvas
2012, 100 × 80 cm, acrylic on canvas
Painting is always the same. An object has five painterly tones: two shadows and three lights. If someone knows how to paint religious icons, he’s on the right track and can paint anything. I learnt how to paint icons when I was 14 and when I entered the School of Fine Arts, at the age of 18, I was already painting icons professionally. It has become part of me as a life experience. The subjects are what changes in my painting, causing me to also change mediums, so as to better express them. P.S. Mary Adamopoulou, Ta Nea, 1 August 2007 295
2012, 50 × 40 cm, acrylic on canvas
2012, 45 × 35 cm, acrylic on canvas
2012, 45 × 35 cm, acrylic on canvas
In the game of life, which side are you on? The losers or the winners? Or are you just a spectator, who participates in the intensity of the protagonists, a silent observer of him who tries to cheat, or are you on the side of the rules? Don’t hasten to say that you don’t play cards or frequent cafés... Perhaps you’re attracted by the lonely mystery of an open deck of cards? Or do you prefer the game of reflecting on the past? Or do you hurl yourself into an unfettered game of the imagination? “All these are games for adults that express a life stance.” Paraskevi Katimertzi, Ta Nea, 14 March 1991
296
2008, 85 × 128 cm, mixed media on canvas
297
2012, 90 × 64 cm, acrylic on paper, Café in Mykonos Ι 298
2012, 64 × 90 cm, acrylic on paper, Café in Mykonos ΙΙ
299
Gifted with exceptional talent, Pavlos Samios is well-known for his distinctive figures, staged in everyday situations – portraits, couples, still lifes – somewhere between realism and surrealism. Haris Kabouridis, Daily life as a religious icon, 1998
2014, 50 × 40 cm, acrylic on canvas 2014, 50 × 70 cm, acrylic on canvas
2014, 40 × 70 cm, acrylic on canvas 300
2012, 47 × 63 cm, acrylic on paper
301
2003, 62 Ă— 90 cm, ink on paper 302
2012, 115 × 90 cm, acrylic on canvas 303
304
The point is for us to be able to see our sacred space, there where even the most insignificant detail conquers its vital meaning at the moment when it comes into the light, like the rainbow behind that window, which may open onto the inner or the outer landscape – you don’t know. Takis Theodoropoulos, Materials from the inner world, 2002
2007, 70 × 100 cm, acrylic on canvas
2013, 20 × 15 cm, acrylic on canvas 305
The embrace, fatal but erotic, carries the anointing of innocence and of the dream, like the closed eyes of the woman who has surrendered to sleep. The various symbolisms, some obvious and some hidden, invite you to decipher them: a piece of mythology, a phrase from Christianity, the ichthys – all in all a Greek seascape. Takis Theodoropoulos, Materials from the inner world, 2002
Byzantine manuscripts were the stimulus for my new work. My affection and admiration for this art generated my desire to paint a series of small works in the form and size of Byzantine manuscripts, using the technique of egg tempera on real parchment. P.S.
1996, 22 × 15 cm, egg tempera on parchment 1996, 14 × 18 cm, egg tempera on parchment 306
2004, 130 × 180 cm, mural
307
Do Samios’s human figures, with their typical sculptured style, convey the message to their viewers that they come from the tradition of the fresco? That the brushstrokes and the colours declare that they are like those which eight centuries ago – when Venice became the other Byzantium – taught Cimabue and Giotto all that which had been preserved and evolved from ancient Greek painting? Haris Kabouridis, Archetypal images, 2002
2001, 40 × 40 cm, acrylic on canvas
308
2007, 14 × 19 cm, watercolour on paper
1985, 172 × 149 cm,
acrylic on canvas 309
2008, 100 × 134,5 cm, acrylic on canvas
310
2001, 40 × 60 cm, watercolour on paper
2001, 40 × 60 cm, watercolour on paper
With the form of the ancient mythical Sphinx always appearing alongside her, the heroine of these sibylline narratives is elevated to a Pythian figure. She speaks to us from within her Dionysian trance. Half-hidden masts and ship’s sails in the background, a crescent moon above the towers of New York or the lighthouse glowing far off on the horizon – in the pictures which take place indoors – make the whole atmosphere enigmatic, allegorical. Haris Kabouridis, Archetypal images, 2002
2001, 120 × 140 cm, acrylic on canvas
311
For those who tread an earth like that of Greece, the history and myths of centuries are a living reality, not only in museums, at archaeological sites or in Byzantine churches, but also in the countryside. 2008, 60 × 40 cm, acrylic on canvas 2008, 60 × 60 cm, acrylic on canvas
Haris Kabouridis, Archetypal images, 2002
1986, 70 × 51 cm, acrylic on paper 312
1999, 48 × 67 cm, acrylic on paper
2001, 160 × 90 cm, acrylic on canvas 313
1986, 23 × 40 cm, mixed media on paper
1987, 27 × 27 cm, mixed media on paper
1985, 19 × 14 cm, drawings, ink on paper 314
2001, 30 Ă— 22 cm, watercolour on paper, The Saviour
2001, 30 Ă— 22 cm, pastel on paper
315
316
2001, 150 × 280 cm, acrylic on canvas 317
1996, 60 × 80 cm, acrylic on canvas
1985, 65 × 92 cm, oil on canvas
The dragon, a symbol of Byzantine tradition, is a prominent feature in this series of paintings for the New York exhibition. Here, the dragon is dynamically revealed, symbolising the secret part of our self, that “something” that represents our desire for daring, eroticism, glory and optimism in a metaphysical and creative game of life. P.S.
318
2003, 46 × 62 cm, acrylic marouflage
319
2001, 200 × 145 cm, acrylic on canvas 320
Is the artist relating the consequences of a natural disaster which has already taken place or which he fears is imminent? Is he relating an intense amorous encounter that makes him see the world in pieces which might be reassembled later on? Or is he relating intimate fears, nightmares and obsessions which have come to light from the depths of his soul and disturb the natural aspect of reality? Haris Kabouridis, A dreamlike revelation inside and out, 2000
2001, 100 Ă— 210 cm, acrylic on canvas 321
2001, 216 × 180 cm, acrylic on canvas 322
An encounter in the stereotype of Beauty and the Beast – which has its roots in the Pan-Nymph Group – speaking of the hidden female desire for a dynamic male instinct, as perhaps semioticians would interpret it? Haris Kabouridis, Archetypal images, 2002
2001, 35 × 50 cm, acrylic on paper 2001, 35 × 50 cm, pencil on paper
323
2001, 50 × 70 cm, oil on canvas 2001, 50 × 70 cm, oil on canvas
324
Thus, painting which was traditional becomes conceptual and as space fills up with a multitude of elements – dragons, fire, smoke, clouds – it demands the viewer’s active participation in deciphering and tracing it back to the artist’s ideas. Olga Mentzafou-Polyzou, Stories, big or small, 1999
2000, 130 × 100 cm, oil on canvas 325
1985, 34 × 27 cm, oil on canvas
1985, 175 × 250 cm, oil on canvas 326
327
328
1985, 202 × 276 cm, oil on canvas
Human figures in Pavlos Samios’s works constitute the starting point for an experiential narrative, which makes creation real. That does not mean that the artist’s thought and imagination are characterised by a relativity similar to that of spacetime. Olinka Migliaresi Varvitsiotis, Traces on time, 2007
1986, 27 × 35 cm, oil on canvas
1985, 19 × 27 cm, oil on canvas 329
1988, 61 × 46 cm, oil on canvas
1988, 65 × 55 cm, oil on canvas
The paintings comprising this work are like fairytales; each has its own story to tell. That’s why I seek to tighten the form and not break it. I retain the outlines in a time that fears them because it identifies them with dogmatism. The outline contains the supernatural element; I’m not interested in it being diffused across the surface of the canvas. Call me a traditionalist – I don’t mind. I will tell you, however, that I tackle my subject in an abstract way. If I don’t forget about the story, I can’t paint. I remain a slave to the narrative. I could be a “traditional postmodernist”. This work, after all, began with the idea of repentance, metanoein, in Greek. The prefix “meta” isn’t always bad, because it contains the seed of the new. And the new is something I seek out; not as an image, but as a sensation. P.S.
330
Heavy bodies, full of expressive power, revolve in a space which can no longer adequately contain such momentum and passion. Olga Mentzafou-Polyzou, Stories, big or small, 1999
1988, 51 Ă— 30 cm, pencil on paper
1986, 160 Ă— 130 cm, oil on canvas 331
332
Each time I leave a new painting on the easel, the window of the studio becomes a second frame, where the world of the street, realistic and quotidian, meets and inspires the imaginary world of my paintings. It seems that the distance from the ground of my flying figures is nothing more than the four storeys that separate me from the street... P.S. Christos Zambounis, Ena, 12 May 1988
1985, 233 Ă— 163 cm, acrylic on canvas
1985, 195 Ă— 230 cm, acrylic on canvas 333
The symbolic dynamics of the unconscious meets with another, the symbolic dynamics of this art which is called painting, which has its own rules of grammar and syntax, which has its own ways of transforming people and things, of distorting space in a way entirely its own. Takis Theodoropoulos, For one night…, 2005
1988, 24 × 29 cm, copperplate 1988-89, 130 × 160 cm, oil on canvas 334
335
336
1988, 80 × 100 cm, oil on canvas 337
1986, 90 × 130 cm, oil on canvas 338
Samios’s paintings contain feelings which in this land have taken root many times over the centuries. Their subject matter is classical and solid, based on a well-digested pictorial vocabulary and showing great ease in drawing and the use of different techniques. His figures have the monumentality and timelessness of Late Roman and Byzantine fresco-painting. Haris Kabouridis, Archetypal images, 2002
1986, 29 Ă— 23 cm, ink on paper
1986, 29 Ă— 24 cm, copperplate
339
If it’s not a natural phenomenon, could it be a mental one? Haris Kabouridis, A dreamlike revelation inside and out, 2000
1986, 92 × 72 cm, oil on canvas 1986, 100 × 80 cm, oil on canvas
1988, woodcarving with acrylic 340
341
1986, 200 × 200 cm, oil on canvas
1986, 28 × 21 cm, ink on paper
1986, 30 × 21 cm, ink on paper
1986, 30 × 21 cm, ink on paper
When the painter’s multiprismatic studio bursts out through its windows to the outside world to narrate archetypal legends. Haris Kabouridis, A dreamlike revelation inside and out, 2000
1987, 76 × 35 cm, oil on canvas 342
343
1986, 200 × 200 cm, oil on canvas
1986, 195 × 130 cm, oil on canvas 344
1986, 195 × 130 cm, oil on canvas 345
346
1985, 195 × 130 cm, oil on canvas 347
The subject of Pavlos Samios’s painting is precisely this state of suspense, this point in time on the cusp of the moment when the shape emerges from inside itself, to leave its imprint on reality. Takis Theodoropoulos, Materials from the inner world, 2002
1985, 14 × 14 cm, ink on paper 348
1985, 80 × 100 cm, acrylic on canvas
349
350
Art driven by poor spirits into the realm of logic has failed. The results it yielded are doubtful. The fact that a painter who is confident in and proud of his education and culture quietly returns to composition and the “world of suspension”, inspired by principles and axioms of the past, need not surprise or anger us. It was inevitable, necessary, essential. Even if certain old habits may take offence. Philippe Dagen, Feux sacrés, in Samios: F.I.A.C. 1986
1988, 65 × 54 cm, oil on canvas
1985, 35 × 27 cm, mixed media on canvas
1985, 97 × 70 cm, pencil on paper
1985, 190 × 215 cm, acrylic on canvas 351
Samios places his pictures and stories in time. Without meaning to, perhaps? Or is inspiration fuelled by life’s experiences, as in every other art form? Irene Nikolopoulou, Paintings rich in light and stories of love, 1994
1985, 105 × 70 cm, acrylic on paper
352
1985, 105 × 75 cm, acrylic on paper
1985, 60 × 46 cm, acrylic on canvas 353
1985, 59 × 48 cm, acrylic on canvas
354
1985, 59 × 49 cm, acrylic on canvas
1985, 100 × 65 cm, acrylic on canvas
1985, 100 × 70 cm, coal on paper
1985, 100 × 70 cm, coal on paper 355