Dear friends,

from 01.06. until 18.06 2023, the solo exhibition of watercolors by the Greek artist Pantelis TSATSIS, titled "Nature as a mirror" will be held in the OSTEN Gallery. 

We are expecting you!

For the exhibition:

I discovered the miracle of painting at the age of eleven: with colors I felt free to express my feelings and thoughts when looking at the real world. Soon I was interested in discovering the beauty of nature and in its macrocosm to trace what remained hidden from me in the hurry of everyday life. I wanted to get to know the secrets of life and nature, not as a scientist, but from an aesthetic- philosophical point of view. And I asked questions: why is nature the way it is, what is the meaning and use of it for people? I soon understood that it is our livelihood. This consequently resulted in the question: What can, no, what must we do for it in order to protect it and not destroy it. With open eyes and all my senses, I try to perceive the world around me, to approach its elemental forces in my art works, to trace the smallest in the great and the greatest in an everyday item. In doing so, I follow my feelings and it was and is astonishing for me up to this day: Art, in its limitless freedom, can reveal much more than that what we think we generally perceive and explore. It is just art, what can describe the breadth of nature and, for the artist and the viewer, always recalling its power and at the same time its fragility. In my work, I process my impressions and sensations through various painting techniques in order to make contrasts already vividly clear. In this way it is possible for me to process my view of things, my experiences and to stimulate viewers of my work to look more closely and repeatedly.
 
The macrocosm of the world in its unfathomable nature, its eruptive power and constant changes, these are topics that are reserved for my painting on canvas. Apparently abstract formations are created that reflect my view of the core of a topic, as far as I can. Sometimes I put my vision of the macrocosm in connection with real images of the living environment of my country, which I underlay as a partially still visible starting point for my colour worlds. In any case, I need the means of applying strong paint to canvas or wood to give the picture the necessary energy and to ground myself. The observation of the beauty of this earth, on the other hand, as I reflected it as a real experience and as an idea of a beautiful world and which is always add   to an ideal landscape, I cannot express that with paint on canvas. I have to use pigment colors on paper that have been dissolved in fluids like water. Only with the water color technique I can visualize the lightness of the hoped-for atmosphere, but also its fragility.
What I perceive as an artist, this extra real visibility, doesn't always have to be “just” beautiful, but always exciting. With my art works I like to encourage discussion about opportunities and abysses in dealing with nature. And I invite the viewer to think about themselves, the state of the world and the consequences of our actions or passivity. With my conceptual structure in paintings and watercolours, I would like to clarify the connections between nature in space and time. We need to sharpen our perception to understand the Heraclitic law that everything is connected with everything.
Just if we recognize this principle, we can learn to understand, that a necessary change always can happen only by the human being, in which all infinity is reflected. Of course this can arise fear, but it creates hope, because soul and spirit of the human being is inexhaustible in its mutability.
 
Pantelis Tsatsis