PHOTO: Stratos Kalafatis-Thou shalt see me at Philippi
In his work Stratos Kalafatis is using the square format, a difficult format because there is no dominant axis, but in his hands gives an excellent dynamism, escaping from the stereotypical images that someone is expecting. His images balance between contemporary photography and painting, both in his landscapes and the portraits of people that emerge from the photos and reveal their personality.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Bernier/Eliades Gallery Archive
Stratos Kalafatis in his solo exhibition “Thou shalt see me at Philippi”, presents his new series of works that invites the viewer to his new journey, to the Tenagi of Paggaio, a region with multiple connotations, an ancient monument, a religious pilgrimage, a battlefield, as well as the artist’s place of origin. The historic battle of Philippi in 42 A.D where Octavian and Marc Antony faced Brutus and Cassius in the greatest Roman civil conflict was the incentive for Kalafatis’ new body of work Kalafatis. The artist, using the traces of history as a connecting link, uncovers the active presence of the past in today’s reality. He connects old quests with new desires in an attempt to define the relationship between landscape and identity. As Stratos Kalafatis says “…There in the land of Edonis, when the light falls, Lycurgus, Orpheus, Dionysus and Persephone, meet the merchants, the soldiers, the workers, the shepherds, the poets, the peddlers, the refugees and the fugitives resting in the plain. And as night falls in the mud baths, in the camp of Brutus, the night turns to clay to cover the wounds of the greatest civil conflict that changed the history of the world”.
Stratos Kalafatis was born in Kavala in 1966. He graduated from the Physical Education and Athletics department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and then he attended photography classes at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, U.S.A. He lives in Thessaloniki and has created, along with Lia Nalbantidou, STUDIOTESSERA, a photography platform with educational, publishing and artistic activities. During the last thirty years, he has been presenting his photographic works at private galleries, museums, festivals and artistic events worldwide. HIS series “Athos-the Colours of Faith” focuses at the Mount Athos, a monastic community revered by Orthodox Christians as the “Holy Mountain”. The series is a different approach to a world we are accustomed to being revealed to us through the printed or photographic material in a way that is much more pompous, eerie and conservative. Kalafatis’s project took 25 visits to Mount Athos in a period over 5 years and selected the square format to give his version of the landscape and the people in this particular area. The artist through his photographs, creates a new mythology and a staple of images also he plays with different dimensions of photos. Something that doesn’t make the visit of the exhibition difficult, but contrary creates to the viewer a sense of intimacy and closeness, the balance of the out of reach–dematerialized changes, but without losing any of their spirituality, thus they become more tangible, palpable and robust. The photographer, through his works, presents to us: landscapes, faces, spaces and rituals, in an incredibly contemporary way, terrifically human and absolutely poetic. It is one of the most beautiful exhibitions in Paris and really worth visiting! The photography project “Archipelagos” was originally commissioned, for the Greek participation at the 10th edition of the international architecture Biennale in Venice 2006. Working alongside his friend and fellow photographer, Spyros Staveris, Kalafatis explores the idea of the Aegean Archipelago being a city unto itself. With Spyros documenting the human element, Kalafatis photographed the ships and routes, imbued with memories of his own personal acquaintance and family history, as he says “My grandfather, a sailor all his life, could never get over his captain’s strict and capricious ways. He spoke to me of voyages and of adventures, trained me in the secrets and rules of the sea. And the summers went by like that, with me barefoot, tanned and happy, adopted by the sea… Today, ten years on, in the light of this volume, I picked up my camera and returned to the Aegean. For the new journey, unchanged yet very different, that brings my tale to an end. The charred lifeboat and the solitary flag the final gestures of a present which, too, will one day sink without trace into the depths of time.”
Photo: Stratos Kalafatis, Untitled, 2021/22, Archival inkjet print mounted on Dibond, 100 x 130 cm, © Stratos Kalafatis, Courtesy the artist & Bernier/Eliades Gallery
Info: Bernier/Eliades Gallery, 11 Eptachalkou Street, Athens, Duration: 13/10-17/11/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:30-18:30, Sat 12:00-16:00, www.bernier-eliades.gr
