The Panhellenic painting competition organized by the Teloglion Foundation of Arts of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, dedicated to the memory of the important Thessaloniki painter Loukas Venetoulis, offers young artists the opportunity to showcase their work. The first competition was held in 2014, marking the 30th anniversary of the painter’s death.

WATER Α & Ω

The consequences of climate change have altered our societies on many levels. Our needs and challenges are now different from those of other eras, as are our perceptions and priorities. The harmony between humans and nature, as a concept, vision, and reflection, runs through the history of art, especially when it comes to water. In modern times, however, this relationship has expanded and is characterized by contradictions and new concerns.

Water is in our composition, on our planet; it is a source of life and death, beginning and end. Floods, tsunamis, and storms coexist in our world with the need to protect wetlands, the need for drinking water, drought, and swimming in the sea.

The physical characteristics of water and its symbolic, spiritual, therapeutic, mythological, and religious dimensions have been and continue to be a source of inspiration for the art of painting. Its fluidity, reflections, melancholy, grandeur and picturesqueness, its changeability and transience, appear in works by artists such as Katsushika Hokusai, Claude Monet, Caspar David Friedrich, Bill Viola, Pino Pascali, Yayoi Kusama and David Hockney. Also worth mentioning are works from the Teloglion Foundation collection, such as Takis Iatrou’s Water (included in the current exhibition ART-DIAGONIOS and The Museum That Never Was), Melancholy by Dimitris Galanis, Abyss by Thanos Tsigos, and the eponymous work by Magdalini Siakouri.

This year’s painting competition in memory of artist Loukas Venetoulis proposes the theme Water A & Ω, inviting artists to take a creative approach to these issues with a focus on the element of water.

For more information, please call 2310 991611 – 2310 991621 – 2310 999078 on weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.