Apostolos Kilessopoulos

by Crysanthos Christou

Apostolos Kilessopoulos may be regarded as one of our most interesting post-war artists. His studies in architecture and painting at Darmstadt, cinematography in Athens, and opera direction and stage design in Rome, coupled with profound culture, his close attachment to and personal assimilation of the achievements of modern art have all helped him to develop from an early stage his own pictorial language, distinguished by its wealth of expression, its intrinsic truth, and its cosmogonic nature.
In Kilessopoulos we have an artist with a poetic predisposition, who manages to express his view of the world through an original lyricism, unfettered by the constraints of visual reality. His visual stimuli are always translated into expressive values, which are defined by their often purely musical content and the dominant role played by colour.

In his earlier works, Kilessopoulos tended to maintain contact with the objective world. Even in these works, though, executed in his student days between 1962 and 1966, it was not the external features and descriptive formulae that set the mood; rather, it was the stylisation of the forms and the emphasis on colour. The human figures and subjects taken from the natural world cast off their objective, perceived characteristics and are presented as expressive values. They are transformed into ensembles which combine curvilinear and acute-angled motifs, either in harmony or in conflict, and are fully integrated into the colour scheme. These dynamic works have no perspective and the elements in the composition appear to be moving freely. In Boats (1966) and a series of still-lives (1967-1970), it is easy to see the artist's ability to transform the natural world and its stimuli into pictorial values which lead directly to the essential. The use of collage in some of Kilessopoulos 's works of this period allows him to go further-into an area where surrealistic freedom and its automatic drawing, and abstract expression come together to produce ensembles which enthrall the viewer with their strong colours and organised integration. In works such as "City" and "Homage a Braque", the formal elements are freely developed, the colours are imposing by force of their intrinsically, and the composition is marvelously balanced between stillness and movement, extrinsic and intrinsic truth.

Kilessopoulos made the transition to abstract art in 1976. Even his choice of titles reflected this new direction: "Composition", for instance, or simply "Unfitled". His creations of this period fall into the category of what might be called "lyrical abstraction" or "abstract landscape-painting", which, between 1976 and 7980, played a decisive role in his work. He placed great emphasis on, mainly cool, colours and movement. The boldly emphasised centres and the balanced development of the forms turn the painted surface into an area where forces move in all directions. Here we have all manner of shapes which move, are transformed, recede towards the background, or approach the surface-new worlds are created before our very eyes. An infinite number of tones are integrated into the painting through the introduction of calligraphic formulae which add new dimensions. Free motifs and curvilinear shapes, dynamic diagonal elements and linear features, large and small surfaces, masses of colour and small patches all create a space which expands, metamorphoses, and changes. As Giorgos Mourelos has already pointed out, the works are at times reminiscent of celestial nebulae and at others of something from the bottom of the sea. They are, nevertheless, open to expressive interpretation, essentially because space in Kilessopoulos' works has nothing to do with the natural space familiar to us all: it is an internal and purely pictorial space invigorated by the movement of the forms and the dynamic colours, which often function like electric discharges.

New elements appeared in Kilessopoulos' work in 1980 when he began using a richer combination of warm and cool colours. Whereas in his earlier work there had been a tendency to favour the cool colours, particularly blue, now the warm colours, orange and red, appeared, or rather reappeared, and played a leading role. These colours and the boldly emphasised kinetic elements stretch the space to its limits.
In the most characteristic of Kilessopoulos space, compelled to observe the inter-weaving of colours and forms, and transported to a magical world. What is now most impressive is the musical expression introduced onto the pictorial surface. One has the impression of listening to the colours playing a secret symphony, which lends the composition a diachronic aspect. Moreover, an explosive intensity inherent in the strong contrasts between the cool and warm colours reflects an expressionism that is purely personal in that it avoids, all extremes.

In Kilessopoulos' work since 1984-oils, water colours, and drawings-the immediacy of colour reaches its peak and the compositions are invested with a dramatic vibrancy. The artist has moved towards the "total work", combining painting, sculpture, music, and odours. The paintings spill out onto the floor, thereby breaking down the two-dimensional barriers of convention; sculptures float, and the space is thus transformed into an internal one through which the viewer is carried on a wave of sensations, touching the heart of the work and the significance of things.

Eschewing any return to familiar and established forms, Kilessopoulos' artistic expression pulsates with cosmogonic power.

Crysanthos Christou
Professor of the History of Art at the University of Athens

Translated by Mike Fisher