Through the works of these three artists, Archaeology is committed to introducing a specific contemporary artistic process based on encounter and audacity. 
Harnessing the influence of art (sensitive, didactic, informative), these three artists converse in ways that allow them to act and act in the name of a method of creation, that of research. The aim is to design a dynamic, open, and informal space, similar to a public workshop, combining three artistic approaches in an unprecedented conversation with unpredictable contours.

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Towards an identity under construction

 When the process is more important than the result, it means that the search is permanent. Thirsty for renewal and moving towards the inexhaustible field of research, their places of exploration are made of encounters and intersections. They move between here and elsewhere, between origin and adoption, between the past, the present, and the promise of a future.
Indeed, when one word is not enough to define oneself, one must assemble and compose. You have to move from one universe to another to reach these fertile dislocations. Boundaries must continually be broken, everyone breaking their microcosm into pieces by constantly erasing the boundaries between regions. In other words, it means shaking up territories to move towards a pluralistic identity.

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Imagine that an art form could move with a multitude of tools, all different from each other, in collusion in the same space and complete union. The effect is dizzying. We are confronted with amorphousness, which includes everything but can offer nothing. Between harmony and disharmony, the attraction must be nurtured. Divergence must remain. It is fertile. The gaps that persist motivate us to overcome them. The dysfunctions of the encounter allow for the dynamics of inquiry. Don't forget that you have to take a stand. One of the elements, however small, will always have the advantage over the other. We understand that the purpose of the meeting is to destroy a compact and comfortable space. It is to be permanently inhabited by doubt.

 

Contemporary creation has multidisciplinary plastic media such as drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation, performance, science, and new technologies. So many areas that require a multitude of measurements, so many areas that allow for productive hybridizations. The goal is not to globalize everything, but to understand that every practice is made up of fragments. If creation consists only of fragments, is because it is by definition incomplete. Creation never ends, its purpose is to seek to fill its gaps. Always in motion, it consists only of opinions. The dynamic of creation is based on the displacement of these imperfections and their encounters. "Fragmentation works." The visual artist Sentier brings an interesting perspective on the part given to fragmentation and the dynamics of creation. He argues that the concept of fragmentation makes it possible to see creation as a space that is not fixed, but is more alive because it depends on the incessant movement of views. He writes: "Fragmentation can be seen as a constantly ongoing introduction to the world of the living. It is experienced with the greatest conviction in creative practice." And (I would like to repeat), it is in this turmoil that the artist is an actor in terms of showing and performing movements that play with boundaries by breaking codes. The rejection of standardization leads him to develop new meanings. Thus, in the workshop, the motivation is found in the dynamic experience of incompleteness, introspection, and then encounters. It is on these related concepts that this exhibition project opens up: "Archaeology", Maintaining the rhythm of research so that the creative act is always possible.

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Eleni Stroulia and the autonomy of color

 Eleni is a visual artist, known in the field of performing arts for her work as a scenographer and costume designer. For the exhibition "Archaeology", she honored us with an exclusive presentation of the parallel research she has been conducting for several years on the theme of color. A reflection on the origins and use of the pigments, developed through a series of small-format monochromes and an installation of glass containers containing natural pigments. As a research artist, she defends the following hypothesis: color, as an element in itself, is not exclusively artistic but also scientific, psychological, and historical. 
Her visual vocabulary illustrates a very contemporary artistic approach in which the place of knowledge becomes a motivation for creation. She methodically dives into the archives of different fields to rediscover an entire color range. Although the methods are complex, Helen quickly gets into the game, accumulating containers of pure pigment, samples, and experiences. She searches and digs into various reservoirs of knowledge to decipher in a precise way the origins of the concept of hue or value. It is true that color has already been the subject of many studies and publications, especially in the 19th century, before the emergence of physics and its progress.  Today, however, we see a renewed interest from both scientists and artists in the field of color and its role in our perception of the world. A curiosity, an interest that has never ceased to exist, but which evolves according to our environment. Helen's current research benefits from the significant advances that have been made in our knowledge of biochemical processes, as well as from modern and pluralistic research tools. She draws on the field of music, in particular the relationship between color and musical tones, and the profound change brought about by Newton's physical theories on the decay of white light into colored rays. 

The works presented in this exhibition are the result of her numerous research projects. Eleni works out perfectly clear compositions in a series of monochrome drawings annotated with references and small shapes. Painted spaces remind us of the colorful flat shades of the artists of the Color-Field movement, where color is used without any affectation. The artist grabs the raw material, the pure pigment, to invest in a space where no one cannot separate the tool that creates the work from its preliminary research. This study of nuances choreographs a colored architectural work with complete autonomy. As Yves Klein said, "Colors are living beings, highly evolved individuals that are integrated with us, as with everything. Each hue is only of the same race as the primary color, but it has its own life and is autonomous." To realize that color will remain a mode of expression and a mainstay of artistic work.

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Angelos Krallis or the praise of "letting go"

 If there is one artist who practices excavation in all its glory, it is Angelos. Musician, composer, and visual artist, his nomadism is multifaceted, multiple, and complex. A traveling artist who embodies a new vision, interested in collecting new tools and new systems for creating works. In a constantly evolving universe, he tests standards and conventions to create other rules in the game. Analyzing music, painting, video, and other media, he plays with borders. 
An autonomous musician, he likes to explore side roads by constantly pushing his skills and breaking the laws of his sonic tools. Like those broken audio cassettes that strangely enough have not lost their essence, they produce a sound. He also composes works directly on his keyboards and sheet music, and on machines that he invented himself. Rich in an artistic heritage transmitted by musique concrète and electroacoustic music (Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer, Jacques Pollin), Angelos creates an original work by experimenting constantly experimenting with the tool of sound and its mechanics. 

An artist in resistance, his sound sculptures abuse dogma and other traditions to remind us that the essence of creation is to cause fruitful dislocations over and over again. No surprise then that we discover a visual artist who paints and draws as he goes! Without ever trying to please, his visual spaces are shaped into a choreography of "letting go". 
Angelos searches in the bowels of the painting for the essence of spontaneity. To follow his characteristics is to follow directly the movement of his thought which is characterized by obstacles and trials. His hand is in full action in an open space where static and dynamic elements are linked. His visual interpretations presuppose erasure, penitence, and semi-perfection. So many elements that make us aware of his role as a researcher or explorer. A symbiosis that develops the study and construction of his own tools of detection. A set of handmade pastels is born from this work as a study of the artist's preliminary work before making a piece.

His installation for the exhibition "Archaeology" is a metaphor for the artist's overall experience in his creative process. More than the objects on display, it is the relationships that make the work, for this artist was born from the meeting of many worlds. For this artistic space where the heterogeneous dominates and until this hour of the exhibition, the conflict must be permanent.

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Tassos Kaliakatsos, "Sign Hunter"

 Tassos is a visual artist who develops his research around the activity of painting. He exhibits a series of works in which the line is active.
Tassos explores through his tactile functions the essence of the drawing that allowed the completion of a project. By preserving the preliminary lines (which should have remained hidden) he reveals the skeleton of his works.
As the painter Pourbus Frans (1569-1622) noted, "Drawing gives the skeleton, color is life, but life without the skeleton is something more imperfect than the skeleton without life". Tassos strips the process of his painting bare. Like a "Sign hunter", he pursues/seeks/searches and locates the trace of a design act that appears between layers of paint. With great care, like an archaeologist, he excavates the slightest indecisive line and the traces of trial and error appropriate to the moment the idea appears.
This series of works, more refined than the previous ones, allows the viewer to understand that drawing plays an important role in the balance of the composition. The line drawn, within his painting, becomes more figurative. At times he wants to be coarse, distorting the form, and at other times he wants to be precise in his architectural structures. The painter then cultivates the unexpected on the canvas so that the drawing transcends its function as a preliminary stage and acquires texture.

This series reminds us that the project must be a free space where borders can be broken down. A specific vocabulary associated with this practice makes it possible to understand its irregular dimension and its place in the genesis of the work. Sketching, sketching, tracing, noting or engraving are different actions that translate this situation into a creative process. This is the space where the search begins. A field of thought in general, the different traces that Tassos leaves in his visual space then illustrate an opening of the form. The dotted, linear, and instinctive lines move according to the tracer's wanderings. Genesis of an artwork, the arrangement is experienced as a unique experience.

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Sophie Fardella

 

Eleni Stroulia
She studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts and Scenography at the Central Saint Martins School of Art & Design in London. She works as a set designer and costume designer mainly in theatre. Her works have been presented in state and private theatres in Greece (National Theatre, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Stegi - Onassis foundation,  NTNG- National Theatre οf Northern Greece, International Dance Festival of Kalamata, etc.), and abroad (Münchner Kammerspiele, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Maillon - Théâtre de Strasbourg, Théâtre de la Ville, Bozar Theatre, Sharjah Biennale, Berliner HerbstsalonMaxim Gorki Theater, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Theâtre VIDY Lausanne, etc.), and abroad (Münchner Kammerspiele, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Maillon - Théâtre de Strasbourg, Théâtre de la Ville, Bozar Theatre, Sharjah Biennale, Berliner HerbstsalonMaxim Gorki Theater, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Theâtre VIDY Lausanne, etc. )He has edited the dramaturgy for the performances "The Suffering of the Unemployed" (Athens Festival 2014) and "National Garden" (Athens Festival 2017 - 2018). The narrative essay "National Garden", which he co-wrote in collaboration with Thodoris Gonis, was published in 2019 by Agra Publications. Since 2012 she has been engaged in the study of color, exploring its cultural and psychological significance, as well as the history and technology of pigments.

Angelos Krallis
Born in Kalamies in 1988. He is interested in painting, music, and new media, while his expressive field lies in the areas in between. He graduated from ASFA in 2015 and since then he lives and works in Athens. 

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Tassos Kaliakatsos
He was born in Arta. He studied Fine Arts in Athens and Paris. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions and artistic events in Greece and abroad. He lives and works in Ioannina Greece.

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