LOCKED TIME
curated by Apostolos Palavrakis

Wednesday 11 February 2009, 19:00

The concept of time and its processing in correlation with suppression and restriction trouble the works of three leading Greek visual artists exposed at Donopoulos Fine Arts Gallery from 11 February to 8 March. Nick Tranos, Panos Charalambous and George Charvalias unreel the calendar of a constant struggle with time held in the latter’s seat. They are distinguished for the singularity of their expressive dialects and flexibility to exploit new media and traditional techniques. All three have been honored with the academic attribute at the Athens School of Fine Arts in Athens, while their significant presence in the domestic and international scene is highlighted by the dozens of solo exhibitions and participations in leading group events.
Nikos Tranos places raw material as the common denominator on a journey with conflicting perceptions of the closed area being its time ends. The early, lead made residencies, which exude the dynamics of external, result to his most recent outlines of enclosure and domineering conditions imposed on prisoners and aimed at the absolute subjugation of relapsing behavior. This is a vivid projection of the request to achieve the mutation of those reacting against ideological social fabric into stooges with specified roles, captives of the requirements they will be obliged to carry out. Figures of the unlawful take up the back side of individual evaluation sheets in which prison and state officials tend to make their observations, a cell board, the artist’s feminine side next to the corresponding male; Installations and objects capture glances and consciences into an environment of time and territorial uncertainty, their themes refer to aspects of civic and consumer culture, the modern way of life and differences in its perception by class castes.
Panos Charalambous’s interest focuses on the time of segmentary experiences that deviates from timetables and can not be measured in accordance with social requirements and the production of useful work. Tobacco is the expressive fuel for cutting senses off time sequence. As emerging it smuggles the pleasure of the occasional incident out of the mechanisms that set up each experience as a historical precedent. Sense gets mixed with the intellect, material with the spirit, while the suspended overcast strips summarize the reduction of simple gesture to a sacramental act of self-knowledge. Not accidentally, this is the personal subliminal initiative concerning the sub-division of time that the system tries to ban under the guise of public welfare, thus aiming at eliminating any ritual without practical worth.
George Charvalias agglomerates the palpable and the virtual version of an equally recognizable imaging value, therefore producing familiar, yet also controversial shapes as to their function and purpose they serve. As the items divert from given roots of usage, they are denied from adopting metaphorical insinuations and integrate an intermediate conceptual level. Details of daily life constitute a sensitive area of contradictions, illogical and chaotic. The organizational plan that outlines thought within accepted social contexts is emerged, though forced to share the same field as its criticism. The non-linear approach reveals more abstract issues such as a concept, a method, a process of promoting the image or object. The controversies reflect a reality of non-stopping mechanisms to which we belong. The works acquire an unspecified period of process because they encourage new additions, each of their stages is ephemeral, a fact that enhances ambiguous impressions.