Amfi

Αμφι / Amfi

oil on canvas (linen)
2 × 100 × 100 cm
May 2011

The title Aμφι translates as both ‘double’ and ‘around’. This seemed like a good starting point to me since it raises the question: How can double and around be part of the same concept?

Meditating on this interpretation of αμφι, and, more generally, on the apparent interrelationship of things, I hear myself thinking: Imagine that . . .

Reminiscences:

Grateful and respectful memories of:

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Counted up I have spent hours and hours looking at this scenery since my first visit in 1974; sometimes at sunset, but preferably and especially at sunrise. This dual representation suggests that seemingly different notions coincide: not only double and around, but also time and space, overview and insight, global and detailed, . . .

I once read that the cult of the deity Phoebus Apollo, the illuminating and inspiring one, originated here.

When the sun is rising behind us and the first rays of light make their way through the Parnassos, then light dispels the darkness.

First, at the break of dawn, the mountains and the Pleistos valley in front of us lighten up. The light is rushing towards us, the shadows rapidly withdrawing. Down in the valley the crowns of thousands of olive trees colour silvery green. Below in Chrisso the white houses and the orange rooftops start to bloom in the sunlight. Goat bells echo on the bare slopes, and the crickets start their concert. The light breaks through. Shape and colour get interconnected. It becomes clear how things fit together, how it exists.

The painting primarily expresses feelings of nostalgia for both the place and the past.

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