ART-PRESENTATION: Theodoulos Gregoriou-Géographie Mentale

In his work the Chypriot artist Theodoulos Gregoriou often uses geometrical shapes such as spheres, cones and cubes, on which he projects images, sometimes the artist includes colored minerals from Cyprus. His use of purely geometrical forms (sphere, cone, cube) which are both neutral and universal, allows him to blur the limits between the material and immaterial.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Theodoulos Gregoriou Archive

Theodoulos Gregoriou’s new work “Géographie Mentale”, that is on presentation at Diatopos-Centre of Contemporary Art, is a continuation of the installation “CELLULES, Une Géographie Personnelle” (2016) created by the artist at the Louvre Square in Paris. Faithful to his theme, which is based on an excerpt from Aristotle and especially on his theory that “Matter brings in itself the principle of motion and change but takes shape and image with the intervention of the mind”, Theodoulos tries to establish the equilibrium between opposite worlds. The artist was born and raised in Malounda Cyprous, near a bronze mine that dates back to antiquity and which is still active until now. His frequent contact with this place, which reveals multiple layers of memory, is for him the umbilical cord between the earth and history, elements that are always present in his work. This bond seems to have not been cut off, and these historical traces that recall contemporary means of expression are the milestones of the mental charge of the whole of his work. “Looking at the ancient settlements of Neolithic Choirokoitia and Halkolithic* Engomi, as geometric structures and geological landscapes fragmented by the abstract and arbitrary demarcation of geography, the artist reassembles the structures in new mental geographies that juxtapose their concrete materiality with expansions of the encoded Cypro-syllabic writing, a script that corresponds to the rectangular structure of Engomi and is contrasted with the circular celluloid structure of Choirokoitia”**. Within this context the works also symbolize the spirits of the diverse communities who have built their settlements both with and around such natural elements in different periods of time as well as the visual languages that are created and sustained within this process. Among the works he presents, “Aphrodite’s Baths / Sacred Gardens” or “Cells”, some rectangular fluorescent installations at first glance seem to resemble built Zen gardens. However, the metals, the artefacts of ancient memories luminous meridians, and his raw materials fuse various visual dimensions that situate his work between the optical and the material, thus dismantling the viewer’s perceptual preconceptions. His works are a visual portrait of an artist who speaks less of his own history, and more of the timeless thinking and creativity of the human soul. His practice urges us be confounded by the complex, the milieu-defining interplay of all these factors while regarding the works, calling us to navigate ourselves through these mental geographies by distilling even a modicum of sense from our immediate and wider surroundings.

* The name Chalcolithic is derived from the Greek words: χαλκός (copper) and λίθος (stone) or Copper Age is an archaeological period that is usually considered to be part of the broader Neolithic (although it was originally defined as a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age). The Chalcolithic was a period in which copper is predominant in metalworking technology.

** Evagoria Dapola / Theorist, Art Historian

Info: Diatopos-Centre of Contemporary Art, 11 Crete Street, Nicosia, Duration: 9/11-28/11/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 17:00-20:00, Sat 11:00-13:00, www.diatopos.com