Curator Miriam van Klinken on ‘Searching for Home’ exhibition

Home is where the heart is, where the food and colours smell familiar, where the sounds evoke memories of childhood. The notion of home will always remind each of us of our past to varying degrees. However, home is neither a universal statement nor a recognizable image. It carries significant meaning but is profoundly individual and unique, shaping who we are and who we will become. Through art, we can question our assumptions and experiences, exploring what the concept of home means to each of us.

The exhibition ‘Searching for Home’ was created to explore new pathways into our preconceived ideas about home. It aims to provide an online platform for artists who pursue this quest in their work, showcasing the immensely complex and endlessly fascinating cultural playground that is Greece.

Greek artistry is, of course, proud of its longstanding tradition, which dates back more than 2,000 years BC. However, it is also a scene constantly searching for ways to escape this history and translate it into something new and exciting, something never seen before in this landscape. After all,

How can someone come to terms with a country they have been irrevocably linked to since before they were born, accepting both the good and the bad? In what forms can an artist create anew and discover new pathways of imagination to break with tradition and cultural stereotypes? These are some of the questions that guide the artists featured in the exhibition 'Searching for Home.'

It is an exciting aspect of artistic endeavours within Greece that art and culture are rich in this often-urban environment. However, they sadly lack the structural support and investment from the government to flourish. These artists have steadfastly made their home their play(or battle?)ground and have let their imagination and creative process wander through the dirty streets of Athens, decorated with chewing gum. They listen to the whistling wind on the sun-dried islands of the Aegean Sea, are energized by taxi drivers shouting to each other, and dig up hidden gems in the brown earth beneath the olive trees.

Meet…

…Panagis Likiardopoulos, who ‘sketches himself a new world’ through almost caricaturised paintings, reenacting a world of ancient Greek statues but through the eyes of innocence and playful perception;

…Nefeli Provata, who depicts timeless joy and continuity of the everyday experience with her diptych ‘Getting Older’, an experiment in blurring the lines between form and concept;

…Christos Petropoulos, who gives the art of still life another dimension by placing it into plasticity and meaninglessness, cancelling out anything genuine and traditional in order to find what remains;

…Evdokia Noula and her never-ending quest of joining the political with the personal, examining her personal connection to the sea through a gender-sensitive and distortive view;

…Phil Manolatos, who takes seeing things through a lens literal and makes the lens infrared to showcase his environment, an environment that transforms and shapeshifts and becomes perception rediscovered;

…Yiorgos Ntolaptsis, whose pieces seem like hearts ripped out of the cosmos but in reality have been made by hands and that even so try to whisper things to us that only the stars and ancients know.

…Evangelos Aslanides, who speaks through sound and translates his perception of audio into huge canvas, giving physical existence to his digital art.

The online exhibition ‘Searching for Home’ is showcased on follow.art from May 22 until July 26, 2024.