Gold, light and the human form: Athanasios Michos distils the essence of being in Aurum Figura 79

Athanasios Michos whitethorn person not trained arsenic an artist, adjacent though helium has studied iconography, helium studied to beryllium an accountant and joined the bank, regardless, helium has been making images each his life.

From banking to brushstrokes: A self-taught discipline

The autodidact, has studied Byzantine iconography, and that forms portion of his theoretical foundation. Along with a forceful physicality that fills his canvases, there is subject based connected reflection and thought.

“For maine drafting has rules, though I don’t similar rules… adjacent the astir abstract creation indispensable person rules,” Michos says

His solo accumulation Aurum Figura 79 astatine the European Centre—Contemporary Space Athens astatine Mitropoleos 74, features a bid of paintings, which are austere yet radiant arsenic if helium has recovered a way to excavation the Attic airy that helium is perpetually referencing successful his conversation, straight onto his canvases.

“Colours don’t exist, each colour is light, if colour did exist, each clip we enactment our hands successful the water they would travel retired blue.”

Anonymous figures, universal emotions

His characters are semi-abstract, they trust connected bold line, shape, and blocks of colour, and deficiency individuality.

“My characters bash not person faces, hands oregon sex due to the fact that I’m funny successful the anthropos, this is basic, due to the fact that we’re each quality and ideally our idiosyncratic features are irrelevant,” says Michos.

This anonymity allows viewers a state look helium allows himself.

“I respect my viewer, I person to think astir the idiosyncratic who looks astatine it, so I don’t springiness them everything, I fto them bash portion of the work.”

Freedom of look is cardinal for Michos, “because it is that which takes you to the adjacent level: colour and signifier tin supply a wider scope of stimuli successful bid to make an integrated alteration of thought and action”

His characters are semi-abstract; they trust connected bold lines, shape, and blocks of colour, and deficiency individuality. Photo: Facebook

Like his quality forms, his landscapes person an anonymity astir them. Through the interplay of land, oversea and the acquainted spiritual tropes, they look acceptable connected Greek islands. Michos plays with colour and geometry to suggest a civilization without falling into the whitewashed religion cliché, due to the fact that of the strength and spontaneity of his brushwood strokes.

There is thing objective astir his paintings, oregon a deficiency of emotion due to the fact that arsenic helium says “art tin lone beryllium convincing when the creator is unafraid to uncover their feelings”.

For Michos a technically cleanable representation devoid of feeling is “dead”, while a spontaneous drawing, afloat of accusation and insinuation, “however imperfect, is unforgettable”.

Set against onshore and sea, his works evoke Greek islands done colour and geometry, sidestepping cliché with bold, spontaneous brushwork. Photo: KO

Light and the powerfulness of gold

Michos whitethorn not person attended creation school, helium studied iconography, and it shows successful his palette, successful the universality of the shapes, arsenic if helium is pursuing some arcane iconographic tradition. Like a Byzantine icon, the subject is not placed successful a carnal setting; there are nary discourse clues. In his latest accumulation the backgrounds scope from agleam golden to warm orange, burning the surface of the canvas. The figures reclining, oregon sitting, oregon squatting, oregon dancing, oregon leaping, transportation that aforesaid strength successful their movements, arsenic if the vigor of the colour and the vigor exuded by the subject pain astatine the aforesaid intensity.

His figures are often ambiguously portrayed, yet they are unambiguous successful their intent, and those images of quality relationships are the slightest ambiguous of all. Couples sit together, so relaxed successful each other’s auras that they could beryllium two halves of Plato’s whole, having recovered their missing fractional successful each other. Those canvases are peculiarly moving, evoking not lone designation successful the observer, but possibly too, a longing for something lost, oregon yet to beryllium attained.

His paintings cull objective detachment, embracing emotion—”art is convincing lone when the creator is unafraid to uncover their feelings.” Photo: KO

Michos’s ain physicality is simply a misleading. He is simply a ample man, though helium moves with the aforesaid deft lightness of being that helium brings to his work. When I suggested arsenic overmuch to him, helium was a spot discombobulated, pointing to an undertone of the masculine sensibility, “My physicality is not the aforesaid arsenic my output… that’s due to the fact that we are a analyzable assortment of ourselves”.

Michos’s work, for each its sparseness, for each its surface simplicity, therev is complexity lurking beneath the surface. The colours, the shapes, the poses, are not there to bedazzle the viewer, oregon confuse them oregon fool them. There are nary “tricks of the light” successful his work. He is not intending to use them to obfuscate oregon deceive, but alternatively to usher them, “and done communal feelings to animate them and bring them closer”.

His semi-abstract figures are defined by bold lines, strong shapes, and blocks of colour, deliberately stripped of idiosyncratic identity. Photo: KO

*Kiriaki Orfanos is simply a civilization and arts writer, and researcher, based successful Sydney, present travelling Europe, and regular contributor to Neos Kosmos.