At The 3rd Frissiras Award Of European Painting

Heiko Claas

A painting by Vassilis Perros depicts native women of South America with large sheets in which they have brought potatoes and other vegetables into the city, and are now sat on the pavement side-by-side. Perros practises also sculptures and collage: in an old leather suitcase he forms a dollhouse-like interior complete with table, dresser, mirror, wardrobe, a small icon stand, and lots of icons on the wall. Innumerable black-and-white portraits of famous or unknown people of all ages an d colours, including one of Albert Einstein, make up the face of an aged woman. Going back to his painting, we find a young boy with a crown on his head looking confidently at the viewer. Sprouting from his black garment are representations of animals and all sorts of vanitas symbols: an hourglass that’s running out, old pocket watches, a compass, a train that traverses a picture, a caravan, pills of various colours, a key, a rose, a snake with a forked tongue, and the inscription “Why?” take the viewer into an enigmatic world with no logical way out. The art of Perros poses questions of migration, uprooting, displacement and fear of the foreign and the unknown, examining social issues that are abundant in today’s Greece. born in 1981 in tens, where the lives and works, Vassilis Perros studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts.