PHOTO:Costas Picadas-Counterpoint
Costas Picadas was born in Ioannina in Greece, so light and being outdoors in a natural environment plays a major role in his work. He captures both natural, and urban landscapes. Picadas studied at the Ecole Des Breaux-Arts and at the Louvre School in Paris. After he worked for six years in Paris, and in 1993 he moved to New York, where he currently lives and works.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Costas Picadas Archive
Costas Picadas in his first exhibition in Canada, entitled “Counterpoint” at Odon Wagner Gallery, presents seventeen photographs from his series “Aether”, “Hyperbola” and “Voids”. Working primarily with a monochrome palette and technology, the artist pushes photography to new frontiers, providing alternative visions and realities of internal and external spaces. As the artist said in an interview for the Pregame Magazine “My photographs provide alternative visions of conceivable realities in a symbolic domain of awe and wonder. They are inspired by the foundations of quantum physics and the essence of visible light…” For thousands of years, the Aether a field which connects and permeates all things, was an essential facet of both the philosophy and science of reality in cultures around the world. The Aether is the fifth element in the series of classical elements thought to make up our experience of the universe. The simple roofed structure with no entrance of “Aether 3” and the almost extraterrestrial interior of “Aether 11” are mysterious and calm, pulsating with energy. The word Ηyperbola, derives from the Greek ὑπερβολή, is a type of smooth curve lying in a plane, defined by its geometric properties or by equations for which it is the solution set. Hyperbolae were discovered by Menaechmus, who was known for his friendship with the philosopher Plato and for his apparent discovery of conic sections and his solution to the then-long-standing problem of doubling the cube. The works of the “Hyperbola” series register a cool-headed variety of extremity however, with their box-like structures confounding the concept of interior or exterior and also offering up a perplexing riddle of reflections. In astronomy the cosmic voids are vast spaces between filaments (the largest-scale structures in the universe), which contain very few or no galaxies. As such, Picadas “Voids” are interacting with their surroundings and create a theatrical stage set. “In my photographs I examine and reveal the ways in which one can freeze both space and time by re-contextualizing different parts of reality and recombining them in new ways. The result is that both objects, and even situations, can be transformed into a kind of sculpture, providing us access to new knowledge about the nature of our reality” as he says. Picadas works are atopic and raise questions about the time and space, the viewer is placed into Picadas’ potentially alternative reality, that artist guides him in the unknown, in an alternative reality.
Info: Odon Wagner Gallery, 198 Davenport Rd, Toronto, Duration: 27/9-18/10/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 9:00-17:00, Sat 10:00-17:00, www.odonwagnergallery.com
