Christophoros Katsadiotis
FOUGARO opens, on Saturday 7 October, the printmaking exhibition "Poetic Incidents" by Christophoros Katsadiotis. His prints are made with the arduous techniques of etching, whereby a metal plate is incised with acid and the "script" is printed on paper. The exhibition will run through the 21st of January 2018.
Living mainly in Paris in recent years, the artist has had 10 solo exhibitions in Athens. His two latest shows were in Paris, at the Brut Art Museum Halle Saint-Pierre (“The revenge of Little Red Riding Hood“) and the Galerie de l’Angle (“Romantic Dinner”).
As Gabriel Garcia Marquez notes in 100 Years of Solitude, the metal must be wrought "with the inconceivable patience of disillusionment", in a constant, almost desperate process without end. Yet in the works of Katsadiotis we find a peculiarity: the identical, multiple copies from the printing press become unique works as, after they have been printed, the artist cuts them up and sews them with a thread of the same colour and almost invisible stitches onto other prints to create new compositions. The new works, as printmaking puzzles of smaller or larger pieces from many different prints, acquire an alternative "reading". Thus with their special aesthetic, the Poetic Incidents hint at a bitter-sweet truth lying somewhere in there.
The subjects in his works have to do with the artist's singular visual notes on an experiential, self-referential field, leaning towards the harsh nobility of the margin. He boldly redefines our relation to the self and the behaviours among us. He manages to invest his visual work with a poetic interpretation of the world around him, seen through his personal prism. He employs soft colours and the translucent textures of etching to describe some Poetic Incidents through a raw personal truth.
The exhibition comes with a catalogue and is complemented by workshops and educational programmes.
On Saturday 20 January 2018 from 6 to 9pm you are invited to an afternoon with the artist!
CAROUSEL
During the exhibition, there will be screenings of "Carousel", an animation film based exclusively on the art of printmaking—specifically the etching technique.
In this singular “Carousel”, the usual figures of horses or cars, as we remember them, give way to some of the trademark figures we usually see in the works of Katsadiotis. Thus we get to see, hanging from the Carousel, a fish with wings and sharp teeth, a hare in a wheelchair, μιa cat with a clown's head, a child with a gas mask, a rabbit with a transparent human body, a bull hugging a standard lamp, a fish on wheels, a tiger-skull, a robot, a girl wearing an animal mask, a skeleton, a winged woman, etc.
The sound to which the Carousel moves underscores the revolving motion of this "child's toy" and is based on an aural puzzle comprised of the drone of industrial tools, Morse signals, the cries of peacocks and dolphins, distorted voices and sound effects like those from bubbles and saws.
“Carousel” won the Music Award at the 12th Animfest International Festival in Athens.
Christophoros Katsadiotis
Christophoros Katsadiotis was born in Athens in 1971. For 15 years he worked as a professional journalist for magazines, radio and television. From 2009 to 2014 he studied printmaking at the Dept of Visual & Applied Arts of the School of Fine Arts, University of Thessaloniki, under Xenophon Sachinis and Manolis Giannadakis.
In 2011 he went with the LLP-Erasmus Programme to Wroclaw, Poland to study printmaking at Τhe Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art & Design under Ch. Nowicki and Prz. Tyszkiewicz. His prints have been used in editions by the Diatton, Mandragoras, Polytropon, Kedros and Bartzoulianos publishing houses.
Since 2014 he writes in the Greek press on art events in Paris. In 2015, the Parisian theatres Eurydice, Zérο and Théâtre du Cristal used his prints to communicate their productions. He is a member of the Printmakers' Association and the Greek Chamber of Fine Arts, He lives works in Paris and Athens.
2011 Award by the University of Thessaloniki , LLP- Erasmus Programme.
2012 Award at the 1st Biennale of Greek students of Printmaking, Ex-Libris, Crete.
2017 Award for “Carousel", 12th Animfest International Festival, Athens.
