Apostolos Georgiou

Apostolos Georgiou’s works have no titles. What happens takes place within the painting as a coalition of people and things placed in a kind of temporal vacuum. You do not need to know anything other than what’s in front of you. The large-scale works in acrylic are made with wide brushstrokes and in a dull pallet of pigeon blue, granite, mint and broken red. They are at once figurative and abstract, and do not dwell on details, but rather focus on the strong gestures of the characters, and the many ways that you might interpret them. Georgiou works from the idea that in order to depict something universal you must eliminate the superfluous. As such, the scenes are never explicit but absurd and highly charged. In undefined territories among everyday objects like paper, washbasins, desks and shoes, the painter’s rough-hewn figures appear in isolated situations. We witness the characters – often suited men – stumble, escape and drop their trousers.

Sometimes the characters take refuge from the background of the painting and climb into square openings like windows, on occasion they look down into deep abysses as if they were thinking of disappearing, and once in a while they hide by sticking their heads in a water bath. But, since we are looking at them, they are still visible; caught in the most compromising situations of existential confusion and powerlessness. Together they make up a portrait of the contemporary human, caught between dissolution and hoping for change, between peace and sorrow, defeat and liberation – a tragicomic drama that mimics life itself.

Work

Untitled, acrylic on canvas 280x230 cm, 2017
Untitled, acrylic on canvas 170x170 cm, 2017
Untitled, acrylic on canvas 230x280 cm, 2018
Untitled, acrylic on canvas 300x230 cm, 2018

Location

Luleå konsthall
21.11–14.2