Untitled,
Digital (im)print on canvas,
mixed media, plastic paint,
spray, lump hammer, chisels
189 x 180 cm
2023
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
Untitled,
Indian ink, acrylic paint on canvas
157 x 111 cm
2023
Untitled,
Indian ink, acrylic paint on canvas
92 x 114 cm
2023
Untitled,
Indian ink, plastic paint on canvas
75 x 53 cm
2022
Untitled,
Indian ink, plastic paint on canvas
75 x 53 cm
2022
Untitled,
Indian ink, acrylic paint on canvas
102 x 71 cm
2023
Untitled,
Indian ink, acrylic paint on canvas
119 x 96 cm
2023
Untitled,
Indian ink, acrylic paint on canvas
96 x 119 cm
2023
Untitled,
Digital (im)print on canvas,
mixed media, plastic paint, spray,
lump hammer, chisels
210 x 200 cm
2023