Angelos: Let There Be Light

Angelos: Let There Be Light
Immersive retrospective exhibition of renowned Greek artist Angelos
Opens Saturday 28 April 2018

“When we say that we are contemporary, we do not necessarily claim to be real. But when we are real, we will always be contemporary.”
Angelos

Following the record-breaking sale of his work Girl with a pair of doves at Bonhams in London last year, an immersive exhibition featuring Greek artist Angelos opens in London in April until early May 2018.

Curators and architects Constantine Lemos and Maridia Kafetzopoulou present a retrospective of the artist’s career, at The Hellenic Centre in London. Exploring the last twenty years of Angelos’ practice, Let There Be Light brings together a selection of illuminated subjects, cast against a vast galactic backdrop. This is Angelos’ first solo show in London in over two decades, his first since his painting Girl with a pair of doves sold at Bonhams for over £106,000 (over its estimate of £12,000) in London in April 2017.

Using art to challenge our modern culture and society, Angelos isolates images of the everyday in space, creating an arena void of context and distraction, something rife in our technology driven society, full of things that demand and detract our attention. Angelos believes that the responsibility of art is to heal society from a brutal reality. At the core of the artist’s ideology is a desire to return to the values misplaced in our contemporary world, a world without stillness and time to think. Using imagery of an infinite cosmos, hyperrealist and decadent still-lifes sit atop rich fabrics, hovering against a milieu of sparkling stars, influenced in part by readings in philosophy as an expression of the artist’s vision of the relationship between all things.

In one of the works, Destruction and Regeneration, a colossal globe sits above stone ruins, symbolic of the cyclical nature of our universe and the cycles of change our planet goes through. Similarly, through Doves of Peace, part of his Doves series, the artist brings together symbols traditionally associated with love and peace and casts them into space, contemporary icons meant as a message for us to regain the balance of peace in a violent age.

Lemos and Kafetzopoulou present the artist’s work with a fresh concept, the paintings set against a black backdrop that accentuates the light emanating from the work. Sitting centrally in this dark, spotlit room, a column of mirrors will reflect the work back to the viewer, creating a kaleidoscopic eternity with each work in a perpetual state of reflection.

Angelos says: “I believe that the duty of art is to reenergize our lost values, so that we can once again reclaim our dignity and the morals that we have lost. Through my work I want to show my admiration for the amazing world that exists in front of us, as well as for the miracle of nature and our personal existence. The world we live in is not only beautiful, but also a spiritual structure. It is this climax I wanted to combine and explore in my work: the image of nature in all its spiritual beauty and the ability of man to perceive things.”

Let There Be Light will be in the Great Hall of The Hellenic Centre, the exhibition will run from Saturday 28th April to Tuesday 8th May 2018.

The exhibition is supported by Lancaster Private Equity and by All About Shipping

Private View: Friday 27 April, 18.00 – 21.00
Please RSVP to [email protected]