fbpx

For Aris Georgiou, the multifaceted artist, red is a constant fixture on his lens.

Aris Georgiou

Rosso Mataroa

Text: Yiannis Kotsifos || Photographs: Aris Georgiou Archive

INTEREST OR NEED? Purpose or habit? Commitment or slavery? What in the world drives an artist towards a particular theme over and over again, and how much harder is it to solve the question when the theme of repetition revolves around the emblematic color of red? For Aris Georgiou, the multifaceted artist who’s engaged himself with architecture, painting, graphic arts, writing, but mostly photography, red is a constant fixture on his lense, even when he’s resolved (if not toiled) to eliminate the theme from his work. 

«The psychology behind the allure of red is, I suppose, deeply ingrained within us since our birth, and this is true for everyone, not just me», the artist says in an attempt to refine how this color, possessing a poetic force, a metaphysical subsistence, an intense eroticism, not to mention its gendered connotation, keeps dispersing throughout his work for decades now. 

«The term punctum.used by Roland Barthes when referring to photography, pretty much defines what happens in my red photos. The color red, regardless the extent of its “intrusion” and in spite of the color schemes it may accent or subdue, constitutes the very occurrence, as semantic as it may be, that stops me in my tracks and forces me to notice it, to focus as a mere witness of a fraction of reality, an observer of a “phenomenon beyond the photographer”, of an infinitesimal
moment in time.»

contact

aris_geo@otenet.gr

Works