So many artworks from this exhibition Id like to share in the Gallery, including wall sculptures. For now, one more painting. The smallest and most unique of the collection THE ORCHESTRA

This one came to me in a dream, or rather, as a vision as I woke one morning. I had been painting images that were zoomed in on, in the forward plane of vision. Seems that my mind’s eye wanted me to see more depth. The scene is an atmospheric, romantic and contextual vision of the musical spaces that Rebetika was born out of.

Many of the figures were painted out of the happenstance markings of the paint on the textured canvas. A painter’s version of ‘stream of consciousness’ applied to my natural skill in figurative art. I see ‘Kazantzaki’ characters (the great author of Zorba the Greek) and a ‘Tsitsanis’ (one of the most famous composers and musicians of the Rebetika) look alike amongst the crowd.

The poetics of the paintings is literal in the sense that the orchestra is absent. in its place is a vase of Jasmine flowers. in the first instance it is a metaphor for the dreamy, sentimentality and poetry in the many songs whose lyrics refer to Jasmine. Then for me it served was to conjure the fuller spectrum of senses when gazing at the scene.

Though I am using visual language to speak of music, in itself a paradox, in my vision I saw and felt smoke, sounds, smells and a vibe where all manner of atmospheric forces were at ‘play’