In Greece, during the 8th century BC. AD, in a Mediterranean crossed by economic and social transformations, heroic gestures touch the lives of mortals, the loves of the Gods become public, myths and reality merge.
In this crucible, geometric art was born, characterized by the repetition of elementary forms - straight lines, sinuous lines, circles, meandering chevrons - used according to the principles of order and harmony typical of Greek aesthetics. (...) Poetry and figurative art come together in a story revealing the eternal cyclicity of the cosmo.
Today, these principles join the art of Ioannis Lassithiotakis. The link is revealed by the works presented at the Galerie marie-robin during the artist's first solo exhibition in France: RELATION / SHAPES. Indeed, in his practice, Ioannis Lassithiotakis uses simple and repeated geometric patterns. A refined language made up of lines, regular shapes and large monochromatic areas which, at first glance, seem bare, static.
However, under a deeper observation the painting reveals its internal movement / momentum, its generating or destructive force. Like the ancients with geometric art, Ioannis Lassithiotakis translates the complexity of human experience into a few strokes to make it readable to all. A "universal abstraction" which evolves in the exhibition RELATION / SHAPES into "relational abstraction". Because, it is here about RELATIONS at the level of the pictorial and the interpretation. On the pictorial level, each element plays its role in the hierarchy of the painting, connected or disconnected with the other “subjects”. These creations always express a tension among order and escape, image and physical margins. An interrupted line opens the block and white invades the lower edges of the frame incorporating its limits.
On the other hand, the titles of the works stimulate any interpretation according to personal perception. A vertical line becomes a wound, the horizontal line delimits and establishes, a single strip cracks the surface inviting the eye to discover the beyond of the painting. These lines direct the chromatic planes by following the emotional flow towards meetings and separations. More precisely, in For what he left, a white “window” springs up onto an indiscreet yellow surface. Solution to the pain of abandonment or the reason for separation? Or, Open your heart, presents us with a red rectangle disturbed by a black line which tries to force the limit. Closed boxes, interrupted lines, incomplete perimeters make each composition a suspended conversation awaiting a possible resolution.
Text Anna Donà
Read more
