NEW ARTWORKS: Christos Charisis

This column, is hosting new artworks, of younger and older artists who either are on exhibition this days or had recently been exhibited, in order to grope together with the artists all the aspects of their work, just as in the case of Christos Charisis that every time surprises us, since he uses different media to enunciate visual discourse. Painting, video and photography, contribute to creating a personal Neverland, unraveling the thread of life, adulthood and death… His artwork is deply poetic…

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Christos Charisis Arvhive

Mr. Charisis which region is Neverland for you and how came about?
I would like to be the “second star to the right and straight on till morning…”, as would say J.M.Barrie, the author of PeterPan! This is in the myth. In reality, at least in my own life, Neverland is right here. I borrow the meaning of Neverland, for the title of my latest work, which discusses the way I perceive and manage the flow of time in my life and the difficulties that arise from it.
What is the basic concept of the exhibition?
The exhibition is a painting installation, consisting of five paintings and a video. Through this installation, I open to the public a door, a small crack, to my deepest fears. My difficulty keeping up with the flow of time and to meet the increasing demands of lasting maturity, takes the form of concern for the unknown, the anxiety for the future and even more inwardly, for fear of death. Precisely from this fear springs the constant need for a shelter. A shelter as is, the motherly hug, the caress, the lullaby, that would protect me indiscriminately and obvious from the ghosts of the outside world. This need to be constantly welcome to a shelter in which I will always be young and sensitive and someone else will watch out for me
Monitoring your work, we redetermine that every time, you are using different media to enunciate artistic speech, why this happens, what need of your covers?
I consider myself as producer of images and not as a painter, sculptor or photographer. For that reason, the media I use in each of my exhibitions, at those that help me to express with the utmost consequence, what I want to say. In my mind, first born the idea and the media follows.
How is linked painting with the shown video, they operate autonomously, or serve the idea and function as a single project?
The works in the exhibition function as a single unit.
What represents for you this stormy, black and white sea?
The concern that lies in everything unknown that comes, perhaps death.
Is your work experiential? Is recorded through art, your fears, your agonies and your feelings?
Is always experiential. I think it cannot happen otherwise.
What was the stepping-stone, the triggering event, the inspiration of this work?
The death of my mother and the sound that is incorporated in the video of the exhibition. My mother sings a lullaby to my son. The same that sang to me when I was baby.

 

Info: “Neverland”, 3 Pallados Str., Athens, Duration: 21/1-7/3/15, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri: 12:00-21:00, Sat: 12:00-16:00, www.adgallery.gr