As I stood before the latest body of work by Andreas Georgiadis, I reflected on what makes this exhibition so distinctive. It wasn’t just the visceral reaction I felt while gazing at the haunting landscapes of his series In Search of Lost Time. It wasn’t merely the plunge into self-reflection or the awakening of the senses. It was also the need to stand respectfully before the concept and the intellectual labor behind it.
It was a Saturday afternoon when my steps led me to the 24 gallery on 38 Speusippou Street. I shut out Athens and the hum of the day behind me and surrendered to the luminous tunnel of memory created by Andreas Georgiadis. His works (45 of them on display, drawn from a larger collection), all inspired by 19th-century literary texts, conjure pools of memory and dreamscapes. They carry the scent of steam, moisture, grass, river water, and dust from country roads. Georgiadis himself could have stepped out of a page by Balzac or Maupassant, so genuine was his way of articulating his inspiration. Text by text, he wove a mythical narrative, with excerpts from Proust, Lampedusa, Flaubert, Stendhal, Zola, Durrell, and Joyce.
French literature, primarily, deeply tilled like fertile soil, birthed the works in this exhibition. Trees, rivers, plays of light, rooftops, human shadows—each piece is steeped in painting and simultaneously evokes an internal process of “leafing through” oneself. Work by work, it feels as though scenes from forgotten readings or pages from youthful books come alive, or perhaps stirrings from evenings you may have only imagined.
Such is the power painting can wield with its profound conscious associations, recalling the arts—literature and even the history of painting itself (as references to Courbet or Van Gogh are not uncommon). The French countryside, Balzac’s Saumur, or Wilde’s London, the profound or late 19th century, all acquire a peculiar timelessness, transforming into familiar and relevant landscapes.
Andreas Georgiadis has created a surprising exhibition. Through his act of painting, he articulates a serene manifesto that feels like a whisper, like the turning of a page, but in reality, it reverberates with a deep, resounding echo, jolting us from the stillness of our times.
He guides our gaze and heart toward life’s essentials, the small yet profound truths, and the timeless fears that lead to beauty. His work serves as a guide through a labyrinth of forgotten sensations and a map of an improvised imagination.
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