The exhibition
Curated by Yiannis Bolis
Ekfrasi – yianna grammatopoulou, presents the first solo exhibition of the young artist Pavlos Karamaroudis entitled Distance Matter.
”The canopy of the Athens National Garden served as the inspiration for Pavlos Karamaroudis’ extensive body of works, which evolved from small. Black and white drawings-studies to large-scale compositions in colour. Observing his subjects from a distance in their natural environment, the artist carefully walked the thin line between representation and abstraction. His drawings stand out for their immediacy, the subject matter repeated obsessively. They are structured around the play of light and shadow, with colour fluently moving between tones of black and grey, in a continuous interlay of alternations and contradictions while also mirroring emotional states. The painter depicts his profound relationship with the world, transcribing visual reality into visual values. As he says, this varies with his mood and needs: “sometimes tenderness and love, sometimes fear, and at other times out of frustration and anger”, reflecting his unique inner experience of reality ‒ a deeply personal psyche.
As the subjects and studies multiply, an unexpected emotionally charged dimension emerges for the artist, bordering on the metaphysical. While working on his drawings, he came across an old black-and-white photograph of his mother, posing at a young age, in the very spot where he had spent countless hours every day drawing. This photograph appears to close the circle of small drawings. Distance-proximity, presence-absence, life, loss, love.
In his large-scale compositions of the same subject, his dense, free brushwork, the splashes of colour and expressionistic intensity create fluid, pulsating spaces. As he gradually distances himself from figurative references, his focus shifts to rhythm, movement, the matière, and the expressiveness of colour, creating compositions where the dynamism of gesture dominates, forming relief-like structures on the painting surface.
The dialectical yet opposing relationship between his drawings and larger painting compositions ‒in terms of scale technique and material‒ is a central concern for Pavlos Karamaroudis, who defends the renewed possibilities of painting with a forceful combination of strength, sensitivity and truth.”
Yannis Bolis
Art Historian
Selected Works
