Alma Contemporary Art Gallery

Untitled,
Digital (im)print on canvas,
mixed media, plastic paint,
spray, lump hammer, chisels
189 x 180 cm
2023

The “Surfaces” that Tsirigotakis presents at the Alma gallery consist of two large, processed (im)prints and a series of inks with plastic and acrylic paints, all on canvas. The exhibition title, plain and simple, heralds that what we are about to see, each and every image, is a construction, a built-up surface. Indeed, the painter regards the blank canvas as a white field which he paints as if he were building a screen that allows him to distance himself from the light, from the field itself and what’s behind it. Alluding to cracks, holes and traces of industrial ruins, these surfaces function as fences that protect the painter and create – for himself – a sense of confinement, the impression that he is dwelling within an enclosed space. That sought-after distance (from the image itself) caused by the act of painting through deliberate gestures is of critical importance in understanding Tsirigotakis’ intentions.

Untitled,
Indian ink, acrylic paint on canvas
117 x 94 cm
2022

While being an abstract painter, Giorgos Tsirigotakis does not take the conventional route of adopting easy solutions and tried-and-tested recipes. The path he follows is contrary to that imposed by the rules of abstract painting…. Tsirigotakis is acutely aware of what he does and why he does it. As he tells it, he has no interest in producing emotional charge through the formalist motif and the (various other) colours, hence his choice of black and white. It was a challenge for him to convey what he felt through pure imprints and simplistic/minimalistic motifs…He also admires the clarity and openness of abstraction, and it is these properties/qualities that he strives to attain. Abstraction, in his mind, “is the clearest depiction”. As he says, “I feel that the self-referential quality of description often leads to totalitarianism, to delimiting the concept and subsequently to the militant”. The word “path” comes up often in Tsirigotakis’ discourse. As for his own path, he has always seen it as opposite (to the proposal of pure painting) or divergent – indicatively, the next stage of the “Surfaces” is to bring them out into three dimensions, whereby the painter begins to fix various plastic forms, such as plexiglass, onto the frame. It is this divergence, besides, that begets originality and – in a strange way – abstraction itself: suffice to remind ourselves that the term “abstraction” derives from the Latin abstractus, which means to be drawn away or diverted from something. Indubitably, to Giorgos Tsirigotakis, that deliberate drawing away or diversion is of fundamental significance, a constituent part of his work and his visual proposition. Ultimately, his “Surfaces” are not “pictures of nothing” i, self-referential images that only speak of themselves. Quite the opposite: they are paths that lead to spaces that are familiar and yet, at heart, unexplored.

Christoforos Marinos Art Historian and Curator