nikos kypraios

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VIENNA 2011

NIKOS KYPRAIOS

The ecsTaTic breaTh o reedom

der bedingungslose Weg der reiheiT

PAINTINGS


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niKos KYPraios


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PainTings

V 2011

niKos KYPraios


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My rst occasion to view Nikoss work was made possible by his son G

Kypraios. At the time, George was working at a midtown oce complex in M

tan where his athers paintings -- primarily o lands capes -- were either hung

various oces or stacked against walls along the corridors. In viewing them,

the quality o the light in these landscapes as being dierent than anythin

seen by painters in America, France or elsewhere in Europe. Despite the w

Monet, Burcheld, or Millet, Nikos had managed to create a hovering lumin

his landscapes that carried a sense o expectant stillness. Within the silence

was a certain dramatic eect, an energy o some kind that possessed a s

somewhat beatic ambiguity. It became clear that Nikos was not simply p

a landscape as a sign o pleasure (as one might nd in French Impressionism

he was also telling a story through these landscape that carried implicit s

ism and deeply conficted, i not oreboding messages. These landscapes w

innocent. They were raught with mystery, suering, and hidden strie inc

historical events in his ancient homeland.

Nikos leads a simple lie o solitude in order to ocus on his work. He

concerned with events in the world outside than in what he senses in the ev

world around him. Ater residing in Australia or more than twenty years a period o exile, the artist discovered a renewed ondness or the olk tra

within his Aegean culture. Since the 1990s, he has divided his time between

in Athens and on the island o Samos.

While there are dierences between urban and country lie, Nikos

niKos KYPraios and The birTh o PainTing

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home in either place. Athens is a cosmopolitan and international center o

ness and tourism, and Samos is more intimate and rural, more isolated ro

hectic pace o the mainland. For the artist, each environment compleme

other and thus oers a necessary stimuli and inspiration in order to pursu

ideas through his painting.

In contrast to the enormous expanse o desecrated landscapes by t

man painter Anselm Kieer, the paintings o Nikos are more humble, more

to an easel scale picture that could t on anyones wall. The intimate scale o

paintings refects not only a eeling o the landscape he knows so well onland o Samos but also reveals something o the character o the artist. This

his work all the more convincing as art. Rather than competing in scale o

with other artists, whether past or present, Nikos has chosen to ocus on h

perspective and to articulate his own point o view. He wants his paintings

not as a public sensation but as a private evocation o the struggle between

and sanctity, between the earth and the sky, between the orces o good an

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There is a certain distance in Nikos paintings that combines with the

humility and quiet sense o privacy. Both are noble qualities that are losin

as the menace o globalization quanties everything within its reach. It is

nd this kind o lucidity in contemporary painting today. On an intuitive leve

understands these qualities as a source o strength and inspiration. By be

himsel, he is capable o capturing the story o the la ndscape or the still-lie morte) more accurately. As an intimate artist, he is capable o envisioning

o internal reality in his paintings that is both psychological and spiritual.

this reason that I s ense in Nikoss painting the origins o what a human being

choose to paint. Why would someone what to pick up a brush and apply p

to a surace, whether it be on the rocks o a cave or a stretch o canvas or a w

altarpiece. What could the motivation possibly be?

In addition to technical and ormal discipline, the ability to paint also r

a sense o the awareness o change through the reality o time. By sensing t

ity, one comes into contact with the history o human events and eelings

in turn, opens a door to the mythic dimension o painting. Painting is a soli

whereby the artists imagination invents new orms. The point is to grasp

thing beyond the reality o what we see in the everyday world. One reas

Nikos is an important painter is because he re-lives the origins o painting

he is painting he is always painting or the rst time. To see a work by Nik

understand why a camera cannot capture what he is telling us, because wh

telling us comes directly rom his eelings and is gradually rened into som

that startles us into a new awareness o what it means to be alive.

Two o the themes that Nikos has painted in recent years are shruits.

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One might regard these nature morte paintings as miniature land

Rather than sunlit elds or sublime orests, the sh and ruits appear more in

They are shown on a table within a small space where they hold a amili

related to the mystical yellows and reds ound in the earlier landscapes. Vhave oten suggested to Nikos that these paintings are simply still-lie paint

i there was no urther symbolic comment. But this is not true. From the pe

tive o the artist, these paintings o dead sh and picked ruits reer to the b

o human emotions, ranging rom sadness to ecs tatic joy.

They symbolize a kind o completeness that is both present and absence in

day lie.

When I see the reddish glow o the ruit in these paintings, there is a c

confict. The color suggests a kind o magical encounter with the natural

yet it also represents a kind o anxiety and dissociation o the psyche in re

to nature. This kind o distance between human beings and nature is one

major tragedies that the artist is trying to tell us. His paintings reveal a bowl

something innocent. But as we look again, one might see the ruit under a di

light. Is it real ruit? Or just an image o ruit? A temptation or a reality? Wha

it mean to live in a world o simulation?

Nikos sees his role as an artist not to give answers but to reveal que

based on conficts that are visually represented. What we perceive may or m

be what we assume it to be. Is what we are seeing in a Nikos painting some

real or something transormed or transmuted rom another state o Beingother place in time? We cannot really say, but this implies a kind o reinca

o all living things. Yet we may grasp the stillness and the energy o nature in

paintings. The goodness o lie is present in our way o seeing, but so is th

side. Nikos paintings represent not just one aspect o Be ing.

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Even so, he is ocusing on the simple aspect o lie and raising met

cal questions in the process. The sh and ruits are innocent on the one ha

are also reminders o lie passing in ront o us and through us. We may qu

whether we have succeeded or ailed to see ourselves in relation to the ea

inhabit. This is where the spiritual aspect o these simple paintings oers

vincing truth.. Nikos gives beauty to his paintings and thereby allows us to

on the meaning o simple things and simple actions, o what we do, and h

becomes the creatures that we are.

Another comment, in closing. The title o this essay includes the word

which, o course, is a hopeul sign. Here I eel obliged to explain. Nikos ge

orms and colors through the activity o his imagination. In each case, thes

and colors relate to memor y, to some place or some time that he has exper

To paint a picture is not like taking a picture as one might do with a came

video recorder. In Nikos paintings there is nothing to be taken. There is on

is given. In this sense, a painting may resemble a git. The birth o paintin

Nikos paintings -- suggests the rst impulse to represent an object in natu

has meaning in our lives.

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The artist may look and remember, even beore the application o p

brushed on the canvas. The rst stroke is the beginning, the birth o som

transormed by the artist s mind, heart, and hand. It is a message, perhaps, th

essential message -- that living is not merely surviving, but loving what oth

willing to give us and what we are willing to give them.. Nikos paintings a

minder o this undamental impulse. Painting in this sense constitutes the b

an image physically seen, emotionally elt and conceptually remembered

orm o delivery, a transerence, and a communication that reminds us o w

basic to our senses, and what is necessary or us to live happily, even as the

suddenly begins to appear oreign to our senses.

_______________

Robert C. Morgan, Ph.D. is an international art critic, art historian, poet, and artist win New York City. In 1999, he was the rst recipient o the Arcale award given in Salamanc

In 2005, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in t he Republic o Korea.

He is a visiting Proessor at Pratt Institute and the author o many books, includingideas (Cambridge, 1996) and The End o the Art World (1998). He has books and essays tra

into several languages and lectures widely on issues o connoisseurship in art and prob

repression and memory in culture.

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, 16-7-2010

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I would like to thank Mr. Ernst Traun, CEO of Valartis Bank (Austri a) AG for his g

support on the Vienna exhibition and this catalogue.

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