Sotiris Papanikolaou Photography

Black boxes

 

Writing a complete dissertation on art would be a difficult task , for the exact definition of the intelligible is in itself the true origin of meaning. On the other hand , the total negation of this definition drives us to the artwork, showing us the way towards what can neither be given a theme nor be expressed. It is this very ineffability that Sotiris Papanikolaou tries to catch in a visual world , to the degree that this is possible. Thus appears the authenticity of the artwork as the surfacing of the form out of historical time. The image itself becomes an archetype of accumulated time , while it also witnesses the unbridgeable relations of a truly painful memory.

The originality of Sotiris Papanikolaou's work brings upon the viewer a perplexity that sets one apart , as one realizes that these works of art represent a small history of the artwork itself. Seen as separate visual groups , the artist's works take on a critical character , in order to reconnect form with particularity in its multiple meaning , through a memory that aims at being a genuine , intellectual experience.

Understanding the artwork becomes true laceration.We are called to grope with experiences that seem to be collective and honest experiences.Here, beauty is not only '' a bearable  horror '' but rather takes this concept to its very limits , while the artist's truth often exceeds this safe boundary , bordering on the primitive experience and also on the awareness of death.

Yet, these works of art become hard to bear if we are to concider a German thinker's belief that the '' wounds of the spirit leave no scars '' , for , on the contrary , the artist believes that scars are forever present. The historical time that exists on the edges of ''post-modernism'' is actually solidified by Sotiris Papanikolaou into a number of elegant constructions ,into modern-time papyri. Thus,the artist's and the viewer's experience of ''black boxes'' becomes the mirror of a world trying to (re)think itself.

 

Dimos Maroudis