Tempera on paper. 3 unique works
The new abstract works of painter Ioannis Lassithiotakis follow up from his previous work, which was titled ‘The Black Line’. The black line, a symbol of immobility, limits and authoritarianism, in these new works meets the top of the tower of life and death, touches the vertices of the triangles of vanity and ascension, is immersed in the yellow of memory and time, it becomes God’s point of view. The constructions of stable or sometimes unstable equilibrium it sets up in combination with standard geometrical shapes, undercut the stillness of the black, yellow and white limits, inducing us into a deeply political, existential and ultimately philosophical dialogue with the abstract works of art. The paintings, which can be placed within the traditions of Suprematism and Minimalism, are very simple in their expressive elements but at the same time very dense and enigmatic in their content. The monochromatic blocs that dominate the two–dimensional compositions initially appear to allude to familiar symbols, but, on a second reading, they seem to pose questions rather than provide answers, through a process of enquiry, juxtaposition and emotional and conceptual stimulation. Some of the larger paintings depict colored box–like figures. These seem to be carriers of messages, symbols of ethnicity, of displacement, but also of establishment, dominance and repression. The boxes are positioned in a way that creates multicolored columns, in stable or unstable equilibria, rendering the frame a space where the established ideologies and their antagonists continuously play out. In some of the works the parallelograms, apparently carrying symbolisms of color, look like ballot boxes – immobile, pregnant, but traumatized by a straight slit on their bodies. Elsewhere triangles, yellow, red or black, terminating at the final black line, can be taken as symbols of the human life–voyage, forward to the future, but still full of incertitude, vanity, and always tragically terminal. However, the black line is often crowned by a white or yellow horizon, giving the works an existential optimism and inviting us to meditate on what lies beyond the limits. But in his enigmatic work “God’s Eye”, the artist places God’s point of view decidedly within the limits (of life itself? of society? of the world?), disturbing the geometric balance of the composition and the chromatic harmony between white and yellow. The new work by Ioannis Lassithiotakis brings back to the forefront the metaphysical as well as sociopolitical dimensions of abstraction in a resourceful and modern way that builds in a creative way on the vision of the great avant–garde artists of the 20th century.
Harris Hatziioannou, PhD, Philosophy
Two still available.
1.200 € net