Thodoris Angelopoulos / Motley Landscapes

Ioulita Karamavrou /  I think it was a trauma

Haris Kontosfyris / the dead end of the landscape, the catharsis

 Ioannis Lasithiotakis / Ideal Lines

 Mariella Bilitsa / Sunday Mondays

The Braggart Contemporary Gallery presents from January 14-31, 2023, at the Research Center – Tsitsani Museum, in the space of the Twin Ottoman bath of Trikala, co – presenting five solo exhibitions of the visual artists: Thodoris Angelopoulos/Motley landscapes, Ioulitta Karamavrou/ I think that it was a trauma, Haris Kontosphyris/the dead end of the landscape the catharsis, Ioannis Lasithiotakis/ ideal lines, Mariella bilitsa/Sunday Mondays, with general title Thermals. The opening will take place on Saturday, January 14 at 18: 30.

The Braggart gallery is inspired by the space of the Twin Ottoman Bath Museum Tsitsani, former prisons of Trikala and invites the five artists to present themselves individually in the space, which is divided according to the historical function of the baths in warm, cold and lukewarm, men and women, to interact with each other, but also with the space of the Twin Ottoman Bath, twin double for men and women. How much the work of one resembles the other, but also how much the history of the building with their artistic work. Painting and Sculpture interact and develop within the spaces.

The construction of the Ottoman baths proves to be suitable for their transformation from a recreation area to a place of confinement. The thick walls with minimal openings in order to ensure the stability of the temperature and the privacy of the space, act as an impermeable barrier. So at the end of the 19th century., the bath is retrofitted to house the building of the closed prisons of Trikala. Prisons operated here until 2006.

Motley Landscapes / Thodoris Angelopoulos

The work of Thodoris Angelopoulos presents environments in which Man projects the two disparate sides of himself. The first is his thymic, animal side, which in the images is symbolically represented with disproportionate caricatures of human heads. The second is his logic that is represented symbolically through the element of the grid. It is a world made up of scattered pieces, on the border between dissolution and creation. The artist Thodoris Angelopoulos presents in the space where the carpentry machines of the former guards of Trikala are located. People who have lived in correctional institutions have and present two disparate sides of their inner world. One includes all the moments and actions of their lives, as well as what led them to prison. As the artist mentions the thymic and animal side. Then the second Motley side could be said to present their life, their action inside the prison as well as the correctional process.

Thodoris Angelopoulos mentions the second Motley side in the form of a grid. The cans of the grid remind and give the feeling of prison and entrapment. The works presented contain some fixed elements that function symbolically and are repeated in each image. The first of these is the head. The heads are incorporeal, disproportionate, and rendered as caricatures. They may laugh hysterically or scream, but never speak, thus expressing the most irrational, angry and animal side of man. The second common element, the grid, expresses logic and emerges as a rational, structural element that helps man to create on the basis of a rule. Finally, the third element, the figure of a man, appears in a small size inside the painted surface, taking up as little space as possible. He is an everyday person without specific or special characteristics, who puts forward the two basic elements that he contains within himself: the irrational and the rational. In this light, man experiences a perpetual process of creation and destruction, where one state succeeds another incessantly.

Ioulita Karamavrou / I think that it was a trauma

In this series of works Ioulitta Karamavrou tries to represent her interest in concepts concerning the self as self-consciousness and the encounter of the self with things and others. Specifically, it concerns possible narratives of images that may arise as a result of searching for mental landscapes and states that govern the self in relation to mental trauma. Through the creation of these works Karamavrou tries to heal parts of herself.

The dead end of the landscape, the catharsis / Haris Kontosfyris

Through the cultural narratives about the unclean contaminated landscape, stories emerge about small domestic insects that clean up by locating the dirty corners of people’s contamination. Cockroaches and flies distort the infectious and stinking image of microtopes. Flies and flycatchers get together. The Flies of Harry Kontosphyris following the thought of Eleni Gatsiou. The inhibitory relationship of man through flies and insecticides is that inappropriate relationship that fails to accept the benefit of cohabitation. The sculptural development is by Charis Kontosphyris with the ergonomic design of Vassilis Sentzas. The flies stand in sculptural ensembles on pedestals that have been imprinted with the White relief shadows from fly Swifts.

Variable layout, 2022. Sculptural flies: 20 x 8 (cm).

Black sheet metal color spitting, quartz sand

Watchtower Florina 23/12 / 2022 Haris Kontosphiris

Ideal Lines / Ioannis Lasithiotakis

….In the abstract visual language used by Lasithiotakis, the basic painting elements (point, line, level, color) have the power to speak for themselves. This language, of course, comes from the tradition that begins with Suprematism, Constructivism and the Bauhaus and passes, closer to our time, from minimalism and Conceptual Art. Knowledge of the tradition and the modern language of painting helps, but this does not mean that the reception of works depends solely on it. Non-specialist viewers who have the sensitivity and disposition will certainly “hear” and perceive the language of the painter, distinguishing its main features.

Haris Hadjiioannou

Dr. philosophy

Sunday Mondays / Mariella Bilitsa

Bathing women, friends who dine, neighbors who Water the flowers, are some of the many representations that we will meet in the works. A narrative approach to everyday life that invites the viewer to an encounter with things simple and familiar to all people, which, however, are often connected in an unexpected and paradoxical way. Through the prism of personal experience and individual experience, the mystery of life, optimism and joy of the moment, communication are detected in the works.

Organized by: Braggart Contemporary Gallery www.braggart.gr

Opening: Saturday 14 January 2023, 18:30

Venue: Twin Ottoman bath of Trikala / Tsitsani Museum

Duration: 14-31 January 2023

Opening hours:daily 09:00 – 15:00 and 18: 30 – 21: 30

Free entrance

Contact: [email protected] t: 6908622813

Graphic Design: Yannis Petrou