Every great literary work, beyond the objective setting chosen by the author for the narrative, stirs within its reader a profoundly subjective, imaginary landscape.
Such personal “landscapes,” painted by our imagination during reading, often fade only when the literary descriptions within us do. They reignite when memory brings them to the surface. However, the subjective “landscapes” of Andreas Georgiadis never fade. Because he is a painter. And he managed to capture, through his art, the imaginative play of his literary associations. The result? The series of works titled In Search of Lost Time, now on display at 24 Art Space until January 14.
The title of the exhibition, of course, references the masterpiece by Marcel Proust, one of the major authors who deeply inspired the 39-year-old Georgiadis’ subjective emotional iconography. As Georgiadis explains, “Beyond being a monumental writer, Proust was a man who, through his pen, conveyed his love for painting.” The other authors who influenced Georgiadis’ artistic gaze are among the titans of classical literature: Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Kafka, Kundera, Lampedusa, Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and Joyce. Some works capture the general atmosphere evoked in Georgiadis by their collected works. Others refer to specific literary pieces, such as Joyce’s Ulysses, Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, and Lampedusa’s The Leopard.
A fascinating detail of this project is that all the paintings were created using fountain pen inks—a medium Georgiadis often employs. His work is also characterized by its interplay of light and shadow. “I tried,” he explains, “to create a counterpoint, illuminating elements that impressed me in these texts while leaving in shadow those that stirred doubts in me as a reader. I wanted to enrich this subjective iconography with tonal variations.”
What sparked the internal process that gave birth to these works? Georgiadis cannot pinpoint a single author or literary description as the starting point. Such internal iconography often coincides with the very essence of being a reader. However, he was inspired by an exhibition he saw in Paris featuring Victor Hugo’s artworks: “Beyond being a great writer, Hugo was a remarkable painter who used to draw on the margins of his manuscripts to depict the settings of his stories.”
Gradually, Georgiadis began to recall literary scenes and atmospheres. Sometimes, he revisited books to rediscover the specific “aroma” he sought. At other times, he simply relied on the images that had been “etched in his mind from the first reading.” For instance, he says, “When I hear about Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet, I immediately picture the bench where she sat, heartbroken by her romantic disappointment. Or I clearly remember the image I first formed while reading Maupassant’s The Legend of Mount Saint-Michel.”
Georgiadis’ imagery does not adhere to realistic representations of the settings where a novel unfolds. Regarding Kafka, for example, he says, “I’ve never visited Prague. I don’t know what its actual bridge looks like. So, I didn’t aim for a realistic portrayal of the city.”
Born in Thessaloniki in 1972, Georgiadis initially studied graphic design at Athens’ Technological Educational Institute and later pursued further studies on scholarship at the Institute of Visual Arts in Orléans, France. Before joining the artistic team of Mikri Arktos, he apprenticed under Giorgos Rorris, discovering alongside the great master that even human portraits can be landscapes.
The landscapes in this distinctive artistic series, which directly engage with high literature, invite even those unfamiliar with the featured authors to explore their works. “Literature inspired you to paint, and your paintings inspire me to read more,” a visitor remarked at his exhibition.
Is there a favorite author you feel you cannot approach artistically?
“There is—Dostoevsky. I’ve created some works, but I chose not to exhibit them. I wanted my artistic dive into his work to be even deeper—into his profound waters.” *
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