Panos Tsagaris – Let the sun protest

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Panos Tsagaris, Untitled, 2016
Courtesy the artist, Kalfayan Galleries (Athens – Thessaloniki) and MLF | Marie-Laure Fleisch (Rome-Brussels)

MLF | Marie-Laure Fleisch presents for the first time in Rome a solo show by the Greek artist Panos Tsagaris entitled Let The Sun Protest. On show, a series of large canvases and recent works on paper. The exhibition will be accompanied by a critical text by Eugenio Viola.

Fascinated and influenced by spirituality, mystical tradition, the Occult, and Alchemy, Panos Tsagaris explores current themes and takes his inspiration from contemporary society. He veils his research in sacred dimension, demonstrating the interconnection between the values and principles of different religions in his attempt to bring the spectator closer to a Cathartic state through Art. His works are the results of a series of passages suggesting a process of continual transformation from a lower to a higher state, towards the ideal purification. Tsagaris has created his latest series of works, Untitled, starting from installations which he assembled in his studio using mirrors of different sizes and shapes. A powerfully symbolic object with multiple significances, in mythology the mirror traditionally symbolises the transition from a divine to a material state. The reflection disassembles the authenticity and uniqueness of the being, transposing it into a deceptive corporeity (as in the case of Narcissus). On the other hand and in a positive sense, in Neo-Platonic thought and Christian mysticism, the same human soul, pushed by its natural urge to contemplate the Divine, becomes the mirror in which innate Beauty is reflected.

Tsagaris photographs the precursors of his compositions using an I-Phone, a vain mirror of modernity and of our ego; he prints in black and white, photographing the same images over and over, always adding new mirrors until they lose their capacity to reflect. At this point, the photographs are silk-screen printed by hand on canvas and by superimposing the images, new forms and figures are created. In the final phase, the canvases are painted with acrylic paints, and some selected areas are highlighted with gold leaf. Read more

Panos Tsagaris (1979, Athens, Greece), lives and works in New York and Los Angeles. Tsagaris received his BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in Vancouver, Canada. Among the most important shows: Looking for the clouds. Contemporary photography in Times of Conflict, MUSA Museum, Vienna, Austria (2016); TIME, Kalfayan Galleries, Athens, Greece (2016); Studies in Symbology, 68 Projects, Berlin, Germany (2016); And Now the Good News, Works from the Annette and Peter Nobel Collection, MASI Museum, Lugano, Switzerland (2016); Unstable Fields, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece (2016); Language of the Birds: Occult and Art, New York University’s 80WSE Gallery, New York, USA (2016); Untitled, Hooper Projects Residency, Los Angeles, USA (2015); 4th International Canakkale Biennale, Çanakkale, Turkey (2014); Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2014); No Country For Young Men. Contemporary Greek Art in Times of Crisis, Bozar, Brussels, Belgium (2014); 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece (2013); Nostalgia Nevrosa, ReMap 4, State of Concept Gallery, Athens, Greece (2013); THE GARDEN OF EDEN - EVIL - Near-Far, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2012); Gold, Imperial Belvedere Palace Museum, Vienna, Austria; The Quality of Presence, Chelsea Hotel, New York, USA (2012); OU.UN.PO. Symposium, archaeological site of Elefsina, Greece (2011); The West at Sunset, Abrons Arts Center, New York, USA (2010); 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale & Performance Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece (2009); The Inability to interpret sensations in this excess of light, performance, Assab-One Institution, Milan, Italy (2007).