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"...in
the musical architecture of the universe…" (page
2) |
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| The number of tangible surfaces is small, but the artistic gesture essentially causes the levels to multiply. These levels are at once visible and invisible, hovering between a material and an immaterial form. The use, too, of elements composed of different types of thread plays a decisive role in the creation of space. Though thread is a material that can be seen only faintly, it has the power to delimit a whole area. Points which already exist are revealed and defined, leading the viewer beyond the limits of the conventional viewpoint.In a similar way, space is also created through points in some of his earlier works, such as his drawings.
Besides, he is very familiar with the sensation of building in space from his architectural studies. After 1995 the element of automatic drawing enters his work. The refusal to remove or correct gestures contributes to a more spontaneous form of drawing. In themes that involve tonal gradations he follows, as he himself testifies, classical methods. The threads are individually coloured with the brush in order to achieve the desired textures. The webs that are created at some points consist of painted threads and at others rely on the composition of the materials for their effect, yet they all blend together to form a unified whole. The structural strength of colour is particularly emphasized, precisely because the quantity of the colour is so small. Colour, moreover, has always been a basic structural element in his works, regardless of the type of material chosen on each occasion. It is a fact that research into materials has never been an end in itself for Kilessopoulos and he has never sought to make use of rare or unusual materials. The material is a tool for recording the desired artistic vision and it is up to the artist whether he will transform it into a means of expressing his spirituality. The "Fractals" or the multi-layered works cannot be described as simple constructions because they do not remain simply as tangible proof of an act of manual labour but are transformed into images of the space-time continuum. Various materials work together to effect this transformation, such as paper, thread, wire and transparent sheets -materials which are weightless or "immaterial". The nature of these particular materials guarantees their selection. The "Fractals" are created in three-dimensional space. First of all, the artist hangs up a thread and on it fixes a wire, which he leans in a particular direction. This wire forms the basic shaft around which will be woven the structural framework of the work, yet at the same time it is part of the framework, the backbone and the body together. Next he adds a second wire, which he leans in another direction and the framework balances in the air. By adding wires in all directions, which he fixes by twisting them round each other, he creates a mesh that reveals a whole canopy of points with a galactic structure, i.e. one which is not spherical in form. The wires vary very slightly in thickness, though these variations are significant because they produce different impressions in space. Then transparent sheets or paper are added. The transparent sheeting (estralon) is a very hard and rigid material, which of necessity is assembled with wires. It is almost always cut into streamlined shapes (which suggest dolphins, birds or fish) because the painter is enchanted by curves. These shapes also possess a sense of movement. In other cases he uses nylon in order to create more plastic forms in the circular motion of the galaxy. The type of paper he prefers is architectural paper, because it tends to gleam when illuminated and functions as a kind of bright ethereal cloud. In a similar way, structural laws also govern the floor-based "Fractals", in which only wire is used. As in the multi-layered works, so too in the "Fractals" colour has a structural function. Slight, though crucial, tonal variations give the wire a metaphysical dimension in space, the material reacts differently to light and the whole acquires a sense of chromatic movement. Overall, the presence of colour is faint, yet it is of fundamental importance to the realization of the work. The coloured figures on paper or transparent sheets also possess structural properties. These figures are conventionally governed by the laws of abstract painting, yet abstraction in Kilessopoulos' work has essentially always been a notional form of abstraction. The use of an abstract form of artistic expression frees the viewer from the need to interpret specific images and offers him a means of understanding the -apparently- non-visible world, the world of the spirit. Even gaps and solid masses are essential structural elements. The gaps in the meshes -wherever they exist- can be regarded as an equivalent of the rest in music. They play just as important a functional role as solid masses, in that they construct intervening space and make it visible. A void can never be equated with emptiness. According to Kasimir Malevich, moreover, the void "is full of the absence of all objects", it is "pregnant with concepts" [*]. In the case of the "Fractals" the gaps are pregnant with the concepts of immateriality and space and lend them shape and form. The total number of points defined by the gaps and solid masses determines the geometry of the shapes in Kilessopoulos' works. They are variable points and the geometry of his works apparently contrasts with the geometry of the enneagram, which is a purely geometric figure with fixed points. However, this archetypal figure, the secret code to the universe, whose geometry existed before that of all other figures, can serve as a starting-point for decoding the geometry of his works. The fixed geometry of the enneagram and the freer geometry of artistic forms are two aspects of the same process of measuring space and are in complete harmony with each other.
[*] See Aaron Shaft, "Suprematism" in Concepts of Modem Art. From Fauvism to Postmodernism (N. Stangos Ed., London 1995), pp. 138-39. |
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