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The
work of Apostolos Kilessopoulos and its intrinsic relation to science (page
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| The visual creations of Apostolos Kilessopoulos offer me the possibility to express my position on one of my favourite topics: the relationship between Science and Art. I shall endeavour to show the close affinity of his work to the Exact Sciences, especially to Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. Other reviewers of his work in the past have commented on this special feature of his paintings. Giorgos Mourelos' comments are precisely aimed at this approach: "...I will discuss the comparison between Kilessopoulos' works of a certain period with nebulae. I shall once again insist on this image, which is borrowed from my contemplation on the panorama of the night skies and from impressions gained from books of Astronomy. Kilessopoulos' recent work, which is now so far advanced and has become so clear, is no longer reminiscent to my mind of simple nebulae, but of cosmic explosions like those connected to novae or supernovae, or, still more, of the cataclysmic dispersal of matter throughout the Universe, which occurred after the Big Bang. The only difference is that here it is not the firmament which is inundated with successive waves of different types of galaxies and stars, but the surface of a canvas with its variety of colours, and the internal struggle among them. Yet this struggle, like the celestial phenomena, is, despite all its dynamism, governed by a primordial equilibrium. For without balance, no real work of art can exist".
It is true that each one of Kilessopoulos' paintings transfers us to another world, or rather to another space-time continuum. When Emmanouil Stephanidis refers to the distances among the form elements, he unconsciously associates us with the metric tensor of Minkowski's space time —offering thus a glimpse at the Special Theory of Relativity— where the linear element, that is the square of the distance between two events, ds2 = dx2 + dy2 + dz2 - c2dt2 equals zero only if they are connected with light signals. Consequently the world of the artist "corresponds" to the real four-dimensional space-time as it is "perceived" by photons. Another remark I would like to make, concerns the interrelation of the paintings' space with the multi-dimensional space described in certain Quantum Gravity theories. According to these, there exist at least seven additional dimensions which are however hidden and undetectable, but were probably present when the age of the Universe was smaller than Planck's time, (i.e. 10-43 sec. after the Big Bang); prior to that moment the four fundamental interactions were unified and acted as a single superforce! When, then, an artist can easily manage to conceive intuitively universal structures and cosmic forms that are inconceivable in any other way except the scientific method, and since everything in the Universe seems to explain the existence of mankind, he portrays invisible or even boundary moments of the Cosmos. And that, I feel, is exactly what Kilessopoulos has done. This is what the artist himself says, which may be expressing the diffusive ability of his work: "...I shall first mention a fundamental characteristic of my art: movement. 'Words move, music moves, Only in time'. This movement has its origins in music and music's ability to take over space as it expands globally with successive waves, which do not get shattered even when they come across an impediment, but are reflected, gaining, it seems, new power". Kilessopoulos draws and
paints by waves which, just like electromagnetic or sound waves, obey relevant
laws
of reflection, diffusion,
diffraction and above all interference. But the fringes of
this last phenomenon
are of a spiritual nature and can be perceived through a "third
eye".
Kilessopoulos goes on to say: "...The movement of the
subject is just as important as the subject itself and it seems
that nothing is as restricted
as we think, nothing is final or definite save definitions
and those who choose to be defined by them. One of the reasons
painting is so difficult,
is that one has to perceive and express both things and their
route at the same time; where, in a very simplistic manner,
'things' refer to form and
'route' refers to content". Kilessopoulos tries to include flow in time within an image and transfer it to a turbulent flow of visual shapes —games of light and shade. His paintings portray virtual incidents of places and phenomena of the Universe. For this reason alone they are timeless. The notion of time in Physics is one of the utmost difficulty to comprehend. What kind of time is the artist struggling with? Atomic time? Astronomical time? Thermodynamic time? Psychological time? It is difficult to give an answer. Maybe the answer is hidden in the last two concepts of time, which are coherently related according to my opinion. Thermodynamic time, as a measure of the increase in entropy of a closed and isolated system, tempts me to consider the trend towards disintegration, towards disorder -and this is certainly connected with the description of disorder by the thermodynamic potential of entropy, through Statistical Physics- which dominates his paintings. Maybe the title "Return and Dissolution" of one of his works from 1975, confirms my view. Since then, I think that the artist's technique has reached its culmination point. As for psychological time, this is expressed personally and constitutes rather the dominant opponent not only for the artist but for any meditating human being as well. Finally, the fact that Kilessopoulos' art is connected with Science is confirmed by the artist himself, when he states that his work is not simply emotional or impulsive but also cerebral, keeping hence to the rule of the golden medium and harmony. |
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