AVGI, July 2007

Leda Kazantzakis

Vassilis Perros’ visual world is a world comprised of his contradictions. Contradictions that he implies through the ambiguous titles of his works, such as the “Odysseus’ recognition or bed”. 

He connects silhouettes and symbols of the ancient Greek mythology as well as the world of art history, with its timeless prevalence. He contradicts the illusionary volume and depth of representational art, with the naked attribution of the real in photography and with the tangible texture of color in the act of painting. 

He competes with the memories of the refugees, the current and the future, projecting next to their selected pictures, their main symbol, the painted luggage. In the same manner, he quotes, next to the attached pictures of the great painters of art history, the bucket with the brush and the diluted color that mirrors the self portrait of the young artist. 

He transforms the –stained from every day use- bed, to a contemporary and yet ancient altar, he depicts within the open suitcase of the eternal refugee, accumulated dreamscapes. 

He leaves, within the collected and outworn from time frame, the imprints of writings to mingle with the imprints of the visual presentation of an olive. 

Vassilis Perros attempts, following the German artists of the 70’s way, to depict, at first, on his canvas, through an almost theatrical scenography, the cultural and political conscience of the contemporary artist. Wanting, at the same time to establish on the painting’s surface, the issue if visual creativity and the prismatic intake from the viewer’s side, from scratch. To show, through his work, as he explains, that “in any case, it seems that the things around us are something more than simple objects.”