EVENTS

City of Athens, through OPANDA, organizes, from 9 January to 23 February 2025 , at the Athens Municipal Gallery, the exhibition “Landscape Painting” by Achilleas Christides , which presents the landscape paintings created by the artist over the last twenty years (2004-2024).

Each landscape of Achilleas Christides is a shot, a frame, a snapshot, a link in a great unbroken chain. One needs the other, not to exist or to convey emotion, but to form an overall narrative, a Landscape. And the significance of a retrospective exhibition that brings together a selection of Christides’ Landscape Paintings from the last twenty years (2004-2024) is precisely this: that it enables you to wander through his landscapes, to move from one to the other, with the exhibition space itself transformed into a landscape.

If by the word “landscape painting” we mean the representation of landscapes in painting, then Christides undoubtedly serves the genre. He does not just paint landscapes, but (also) their representation, the idea of landscape painting. His brushstrokes create amorphous masses in the center of the painting, as if the landscape is vomiting itself out. At other times, they form a curtain that prevents you from seeing the background clearly. Sometimes they are calm and sometimes they are wild, explosive, furious, making their own play within the boundaries of the canvas, creating independent spaces or changing the character of the sky and earth. Thus, a sky becomes a separate abstract composition, a second painting within the painting. Expressionist brushstrokes intertwine to create three-dimensional spaces that imprison the human figure, which, it should be noted, is rarely seen. Occasionally, the idea of landscape painting is abolished altogether or becomes something else, a strange kind of anthropography that hides the landscape within. The flowers are painted on the first level, in such a way that you think they are coming towards you, with a desire to invade your space.

In other works, Christides’ indistinct brushstrokes set up a peculiar dance. They move uncontrollably – or is it completely controlled? – in every direction, spreading the paint in thick layers that connect the sea to the sky, covering parts of the landscape and erasing them from your field of vision. It is obvious that the idea of a beautiful and perfect picture is of little concern to him. However, his landscapes have an inner harmony, which probably results from the fact that the majority of them are experienced. Even so, however, one could hardly say that the painter is recording an experience, his temporary presence in a place. Christides’ Greece is an unpredictable and magical country, which surprises you every time with its ability to give birth to unique combinations of colours that you have never seen before. In his paintings, however, the Greek landscape is not immediately recognizable, at least not in the way it is with other Greek painters.

He often paints views that you wouldn’t call spectacular – and yet, the painter seems to relish these seemingly indifferent aspects of nature: it is obviously a challenge for him to render the subtle gradations of the brown-green of the earth and trees, or the monotone volume of a dry hill or the black creeping shadow of a cypress. For Christides, there is nothing indifferent or impersonal in nature. Everything has its value, as long as you pay attention to it and take the time to let it reveal its charm, its magical side.

Achilleas Christides was born in 1959 in Piraeus. He studied theatre scenography and music. He also worked in ceramics, photography, construction and book illustration. He is self-taught in painting. He has fifty solo exhibitions to his credit. He lives and works in Athens.

The exhibition is curated by Christoforos Marinos.

The opening of the exhibition will take place on Thursday 9 January 2025 at 19:00. Πέμπτη 9 Ιανουαρίου 2025 στις 19:00.

Exhibition Duration : 9 January– 23 February 2025

Opening Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11:00-19:00, Sunday 10:00-16:00, Mondays closed

The admission is free

City of Athens Gallery

Leonidou & Myllerou, Avdi Square, Metaxourgio

Information: 210 5202420| www.opanda.gr