Like a sequence of banners, Vassilis Karakatsanis’s full-frontal apartment blocks are dense, almost stifling, and no doubt deeply Athenian, through all the markings and motifs of an urban legacy tucked away in the common affect. There, in these half-illuminated openings, in contrast to the intense colours of the first impression, symbols emerge as robust as trophies, originating in the painter’s personal mythology, though not only his. Domes of temples, bell towers, aeroplanes in flight, house pets in the foreground, insects and other fragments of dissimilar and largely unpredictable gaze condensers, define a polysemous world that asks to be given meaning.
Vassilis Karakatsanis (b.1957, Athens/Greece) lives and works in Athens. He has exhibited his work (solo exhibitions) in Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Indonesia, Ecuador, Turkey, Denmark, U.A.E. and Germany. His thematic choices and his personal artistic vocabulary are informed by his experience and observation of the surrounding world. He organizes his exhibitions by using a theatrical attitude: he transforms the mundane every day objects into structural elements of his work. He uses a clean and rich color palette and vivid contrasts. He creates installations by using elements from the existing three dimensional spaces and by transforming them into art forms. He researches with sensitivity the limits between reality and illusion.