The vivid and elemental driving force of color

For painter and sculptor Kostis Georgiou, color is a “blessing.” “It pervades my entire existence. It runs in my blood in every hue, even the slightest,” he tells Kathimerini ahead of Thursday’s opening of his solo show, “Enigma 2,” at the Foundation of the Hellenic World’s Hellenic Cosmos venue.

The retrospective-style exhibition brings together pieces from all the different phases of the artist’s lengthy career, as well as recent work. In total, it comprises 160 large and small paintings and 40 sculptures, and every one of them attests to the role of color – intense, violent and sometimes provocative – in Georgiou’s oeuvre.

“To be more precise, I would say that color defines my fields and occupies my canvases in an almost imperialist manner. It is a giant that exists and thrives in colorful meadows but also in the bowels of the earth. It shoots rays of light from its mouth and can transform from one moment to the next into a mermaid, a warrior or a saint,” he says.

“In my paintings, color determines shape and puts order to my space. It is the master arming my hand and skillfully guiding it into the successive waves that need to be tamed so as to achieve the desired harmony, passion, drama, euphoria; only then can it rest until the next moment to arm me again arrives,” says the artist.

In his note in the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, art critic and semiologist Harris Kambouridis explains that even though Georgiou became established as a painter, his work expands artistically and aesthetically beyond the boundaries of painting. The plasticity of this work, for example, expands beyond the two dimensions of painting into the three-dimensional space, while his installations appear to seek to occupy all the available space, within the exhibition space and beyond, he adds.

Three dimensions

According to Georgiou, his paintings and sculptures work “in perfect accord with each other but also individually.”

‘Sculpture is an act of greatness. It is imposing with its mass and lords over its surroundings’

“They share a common code. All that changes is the medium,” he says.

“The interesting thing in painting is that even though there are only two dimensions, you can create a third, like an illusion, whereas in sculpting you are actually working with three actual dimensions,” the artist explains.

So how does he choose between the two?

“Sculpture has a different vernacular to painting, even though they share a common code of existence, which is creation. Each affords different privileges, as well as different resonances. So painting, which is more introverted and cloistered into itself, takes you to pieces that are more befitting this character. That said, it often pushes you into the arms of sculpture too, perhaps because certain of its inherent elements need to escape the canvas and acquire a three-dimensional existence,” says Georgiou.

The artist has also created several monumental sculptures, including pieces in Brussels (St Elisabeth Hospital), in Shanghai (Vanke Mall), in Luxemburg and Miami, but also in several parts of Athens, Thessaloniki, Alexandroupoli and other Greek locations.

“Sculpture is an act of greatness. It is imposing with its mass and lords over its surroundings,” he says of the experience of creating monumental pieces of art for public spaces.

“You can’t mess around with sculpture, as so many hobbyists do with painting. From the clay to the end result, it is a creative process that requires knowledge and a lot of time. There’s a lot of sweat involved, from start to finish,” says Georgiou.

The sculptures on show at Hellenic Cosmos include pieces from the series of the well-known “Meteoron” series of red acrobats that were recently installed on the Thessaloniki waterfront, as well as “9 Muses,” a new installation inspired by Greek mythology.

A documentary on Georgiou’s 35-year career trajectory is also part of the exhibition.

Kostis Georgiou’s “Enigma 2” will be on show at the Hellenic Cosmos cultural center (254 Pireos, Gazi, tel 212.254.0300, www.fhw.gr) through September 20.