ART-PRESENTATION:Six Open Gates and a Closed One

Socratis Socratous at The Breeder

For the exhibition “Six Open Gates and a Closed One”, Socratous lets his imagination wander beyond the seventh closed gate of the National Garden in Athens and the symbolism it bears as microcosm of Greece. Socratis Socratous emotionally charged experiences and trauma in his motherland Cyprus immediately following the country’s violent division and forced internal migration have profoundly affected all aspects of his artistic practice. In its diversity, his work is characterized by a strategic employment of artifice, even beauty, to negotiate hard issues of loss, displacement, and destruction. A recurring theme in his work since the 1990s, the garden – nature ordered, transplanted, and delimited solely for human purposes – has, for Socratous, political parallels. The series of works Stolen Garden is sourced from the National Garden of Athens, itself the symbol of enduring national, cultural and territorial integrity against foreign attempts at coercion. Exploring its paths and corners, he takes the role, alternately, of a crime scene investigator, an archeologist, and a pilferer. Socratous casts his fragile cuttings in brass, plating some in gold and silver, thus transforming the humble leaves, seeds and twigs into objects both everlasting and precious. He employs the sculptural tradition of cast bronze while at the same time he interferes throughout the process at the mould in the foundry, often eliminating elements from the compositions. The resulting sculptures are like plants with their tangled branches resembling a nightmarish haunted forest full of carcasses from prehistoric creatures. Simultaneously the color pallet of the cast bronze – that ranges from dark black to sparkling gold – is like an allegory to the present reality with the hope of a brighter future shinning through the seeming dark present.

 

Info: “Six Open Gates and a Closed One”, THE BREEDER Gallery, 45 Iasonos Str., Athens, Duration:3/4-16/5/15, Days & Hours:Tue-Sat:12:00-18:00, http://thebreedersystem.com