"Patriotic is the truth"
In the summer of 2021, FOUGARO hosts at BLUE2 the solo exhibition of paintings "Patriotic is the truth" by Dimitris Papachristos, who lives and works in Nafplion.
Considering the saying by Dionysios Solomos, "Everything true is essential to the national", and on the bicentenary of the Greek Revolution, a body of 17 paintings by Dimitris Papachristos poses questions about national identity, tradition and its continuity.
In a world where humans never stopped relocating, it would be useful to think of tradition as a reason to get closer to those who come from other lands, have different backgrounds and cultures but we all live together in today's Greece. People from different parts of the planet who were born, grew up or ended up here for any reason live here with us and share our language, our culture, our customs, our daily life.
Over time, Greece has been and will be a crossroads of nations, races, cultures and traditions. Instead of focusing on the differences, one can concentrate one's energy on the points we share with the "others", through aspects of "Greekness" that are pertinent to all. Thus the "alien" becomes one of us, sharing, understanding and continuing with us—through their own reshaping and re-interpretation—the entire set of values, beliefs and cultural manifestations that we call "tradition".
As art historian and curator Vicky Vlami aptly points out, "the aim of this series is to get viewers to consider whether and how a nation's achievements—in architecture, attire, language—can be assimilated by other cultures and become themselves part of the same tradition".
Dimitris Papachristos
Dimitris Papachristos was born in 1989 in Athens. In 2012 he finished his studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts, under Anastasios Christakis and Yannis Kontaratos. While still a student, he tries to introduce into his art elements of disparate forms, combining and connecting them via their function in his wall-mounted sculptures, 3D constructions and paintings.
The practice of an art with its roots in Greece is his next field of research, mainly through painting. At the same time, he organises and participates in group exhibitions such as "Unready-mades" (TAF gallery, Athens 2011), "Arteries project" (Limassol, Cyprus 2013) or "The white house biennale" of Nikos Haralambidis (2013). He has travelled to study major museum and private collections in Europe and the USA, and has presented art-related seminars such as "The history of street art" at the Dance Music Festival in 2011.
Since 2014 he shares his time between Athens and Nafplion, giving painting and drawing classes at the State Vocational Training Centres of Nafplion and Epidaurus, teaching art in secondary education and running workshops at Fougaro since 2019.
