The inauguration of Michael Leventis exhibition is taking place at Skoufa Gallery on Tuesday, November 2nd at 7.30 p.m.
Michael Leventis as a painter first showed up to the the public warmly encouraged, supported and approved by Francis Bacon. Quite impressive because Bacon didn’t use to make any compliments without thinking, on the other hand this could create an obligation. There was mutual admiration.
Bacon had an influence without shading him. Michael Leventis admits the influence , he has also painted several Bacon’s portraits and the brushes have something of his style : the paint on the canvas, the way of cutting his figures, the effect as of an enlarging lens to a specific detail in order to attract the spectator’s attention. It is clear that Leventis has his own strong individuality, so strong that not even the despotic figure of Bacon could crush him.
His imagination is not morbid. His flowers are huge, magnified to cover almost all the frame. Sometimes have the effect of the enlarging lens. His animals sometimes are wild, not necessarily free, and others are domesticated pets as of the pig, the bloodhound dog.
Again the effect on these paintings are first of all full of humanity and sympathy. We don’t have the feeling that their situation is something indifferent to the artist.
Leventis «faces his topics in a way that Bacon, even if genius, never revealed us» as refers the art critic of «The Times» John Russell Taylor.
Inauguration: Tuesday November 2nd , 7.30 p.m.
The exhibition will run until 20 November 2010
