On Thursday 4 April 2024 at 20:30, at the Municipal Gallery of Thessaloniki – Casa Bianca building, the retrospective exhibition of works by the painter and printmaker Takis Tsentemaidis (1944-2019) will be inaugurated.

The exhibition, organized by the Municipality of Thessaloniki and the Municipal Gallery of Thessaloniki, presents around 90 works from private collections.

Takis Tsentemaidis was born in Kavala, in 1944. After free studies in painting in the studio of P. Sarafianos, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. He lived and worked in Italy from 1968 to 1993, where he was distinguished for his work.

After his return to Thessaloniki, he developed the full range of aspects of his multi-dimensional talent in various fields, painting, engraving, decorative art, graphic arts, applied arts.

Since the 1990s he contributed with the high quality of his work to the artistic life of Thessaloniki, and during these years he was more involved with engraving.

The art historian Dr. Katia Kilesopoulou, Art Historian and curator of the exhibition, notes about the work of Takis Tsentemaidis: “….. Tsentemaidis belonged to the group of painters-engravers who, having formed their style and thematic preferences in painting, applied them to engraving. The artist gladly accepted the challenge of the peculiar limitations and expressive outlets offered by this field. For an impatient and impetuous temperament, it is admirable that he tamed these characteristics, disciplining his hand and mind in order to explore new expressive modes. Painting and engraving acted as communicating vessels for the transfusion of stimuli and technical conquests – first in the field of engraving, then in woodcut, but also in linoleum. A refined eclecticism distinguishes his engravings from which grotesque distortions, sharp morphological contrasts and social criticism are eliminated. A pantheistic, mythical world of coexistence between nature, humans and animals emerges through a grid of graphs that thicken and thin, where line plays on colour and even light shading…..”.

Curator: Dr.Katia Kilesopoulou – Art Historian