The Wedding
Vassilis Gratsias was born in Athens in 1946 and his family originated from Filoti, Naxos. Since 1983 he has been living in Heraklion, Crete. He studied drawing under P. Tetsis, graphic design under D. Gounaridis and art history under E. Vakalo, at the Vakalo Art and Design School. Until 1980 he worked as graphic designer. He became an avid painter following a two-year stay (1980-1982) near the painter and sculptor Lydia Sarri. In 1987 he held his first solo exhibition and his works were deeply appreciated by Thomas Fanourakis, Giorgos Thomas Georgiadis and Aristides Vlassis. Since then, he has held thirteen solo exhibitions and has also participated in several many group exhibitions. In the same year, he run a painting workshop for adults at the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation Cultural Centre; in 1999, he was honoured by the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation for his cultural activity. Starting on 2003, he taught painting for 4 years at the Archanes Friends of Art Association. In 2006, he created the “Art Workshop”, where he taught until 2012. In 2019, he created the multi-panelled mosaic “Peace” on the pier at the port of Heraklion as a present to the city that has embraced him. Several of his works are exhibited in the Heraklion Museum of Visual Arts, the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation, the Municipalities of Agios Nikolaos, Chersonissos, Drymalia (island of Naxos), Vamos, as well as in private collections in Greece and abroad. He is a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece and a founding member of the Heraklion Visual Artists Network. A. Vlassis, N. Psyllakis, D. Xiritakis, L. Sarri, G. D. Michelakis, P. Ch. Karampelas and K. Fanourakis have written texts on his work. From 1962 to 1996 he worked at the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization.
Born in 1988, Loula Metaxa resides in Heraklion, Crete. She studied Psychology (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and Business Administration (American College of Thessaloniki) before pursuing postgraduate studies in Human Resources Management (Athens University of Economics and Business). She holds the position of Human Resources Director at Metaxa Hospitality Group. She recalls herself painting as a young girl. Meanwhile, all her academic, professional, artistic decisions and tendencies in her life have always revolved around the allure of the observation and analysis of the human “soul”, which ultimately resulted in expressing herself through painting. Moreover, she sees painting as a tool for introspection and a means of recording her thoughts and psychological states. The exhibition “Thrivers” is her first journey into painting and reflects her search for ways in which she can best capture all those things that cannot be expressed in words, yet they exist.
We know from Ákos Révész’s biography and ars poetica that he grew up in the neighbourhood of sculptor Barna Megyeri’s (1920-1966) studio in Budapest. Révész was also greatly helped at the beginning of his career by recluse Éva Virág’s instructions for compositional techniques and colour-mixing. New inspiration came from composer Pál Rózsa (1946-) who wrote three music pieces under the influence of Révész’ paintings. Ákos Révész usually mentions as a fundamental basis of his art psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s theory of flow which is a happiness-oriented philosophy of life and soul. Révész quotes Csíkszentmihályi: “water flows naturally and moves in a steady direction. It has energy, power, steadiness, and from this combination emerges tranquillity and unity with the world.” So this is the approach Révész as artist applies to the process of painting. Ákos Révész operates simultaneously at the level of universal time and ocean of pure energies, and in any of their manifest micro- and macro tissues, internal plasma states, and associative universe. It can be no coincidence that in his work, impulsive gestures and chaotic handmarks ultimately emerge as a dynamic harmony of blending colours and tight, sudden, quick forms.
Tihamér Novotny, Art writer