PRESS RELEASE
Antonis Staveris
«in between»
Opening: Thursday 16th May 2024, 19:30 – 21:30
Duration: 16th May – 8th June 2024
Curated by George Mylonas
During the past year, Antonis Staveris moved his studio to Tavros where, in front of it spreads the football stadium of the local team ‘Fostiras’. Between his windows with the panoramic view of the stadium, Staveris organizes superimposed levels of space and perspective and draws out the morphological elements of his art from the observation and study of the reality that he contemplates. This reality becomes another ‘canvas’ on which Staveris experiments with his gaze, while dealing with his material ‘inside and outside’ of the workshop.
Mysterious views of industrial Athens as well as plant portraits inside his studio, at friends’ houses in Berlin and Paris, or at archeological sites, form the exhibition at Skoufa Gallery which is a personal diary that records and re-composes fragments of the city life. Antonis Staveris’ pictures are as vivid and intense as the illuminated signs so that one can dive in and lose oneself, as when facing an optical illusion in the desert. He remains a painter of the contemporary city, but in his latest work he attempts to dig deeper, beyond the apparent.
Staveris is well-known for the delicate colors of his palette and the construction of solid compositions. In his latest paintings, his glance travels over industries, staircases, dovecotes and terraces that exist beyond one’s field of vision. Respectively, with his color, he discovers archaeological sites with ruins that are not protected within museums but remain exposed in nature. Ancient ruins that lack our attention, are being restored, reveal that we do not live next to them, but because of them.
Antonis Staveris is one of the most important artists of his generation. He was born in Athens in 1973. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens (1992-1998) under Dimitris Mytaras. He spent an important Scholarship at Vladimir Velicovic’s workshop at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris (Erasmus program 1998). From 2001 until 2009, he collaborated with the artistic group ‘Semion’(‘Point’) and in 2010 he received an award for ‘Best Artist under the age of 40’ from the Greek Academy. He lives and works in Athens and Berlin.
