The works highlight an internal order and logic in the irrational thus illuminating the in between space between the random and the predefined, the real and the fantastic or magical, the physical and the metaphysical.
Euripides Papadopetrakis
A complicated yet consistent world
Text: Alexandra Koroxenidis
The works of Euripides Papadopetrakis seem like the outcome of a fusion between art, imagination and science. They resemble images from scientific manuals or laboratories of the distant past and bring to mind alchemical transformations which nevertheless begin from empriricalobservation. Added to their formal clarity and the dexterity with which they are crafted, are enigmatic interweavings of symbols, motifs or word and image combinations that create a play betweenthe signifier and the signified.
“Τhe unexplored, the unchartedaspects of life are itsmost fascinating. Both art and science require imagination. Each in a different way knows the world in depth and believes in something ‘metaphysical’. I would like my make the viewer place something given in a new context”.
His work includes sculptural installations and silicone-made hypperealistic sculptures mimicking human flesh and fragmented forms of the human body. However, the core of his work is defined by engraving and a combination of classical and experimental printing techniques. The art of book making is also essential.
“I grew up in familiarity with ink, paper and books. I am equally interested both in technique and craftmanship and a work’s conceptual aspect. Moreover, Ialways wanted to overturn the notion of engraving as a mere an applied art. The art of printmaking requires a strict sequence of stages, precision in execution and in drawing. I wanted to experiment with the freedom that stems from this required discipline but also with how a traditional medium can acquire infinitesimal, contemporary forms”.
The works highlight an internal order and logic in the irrational thus illuminating the in between space between the random and the predefined, the real and the fantastic or magical, the physical and the metaphysical. In the place of conventional, rigid meaning there emerges another hidden, paradoxical language, both logical and arbitrary. Intertextual, his work reveals the relational and associative construction of through words, signs, symbols and materialities. “Usually my works are based on a story I identify with. I then seek out from the specific those universal, transcultural truths”.
All bodies of his work evolve in a modular way thus giving the impression that they form a living system organizing a world made out of primal and enduring coincidences: of rememblances between man-made cultural objects, the animate and inanimate – for example between the shape of a tool and a plant. Papadopetrakis attributes those resemblances to the act of imitation which he considers to be inherent in life. Nature imitates itself, man imitates nature and culture obtains anthropomorphic traits deriving from nature. Both Periodic Table (2015) and Anatomy of Symptoms(2015) are classifications of categories made of resembling forms. “I am intrigued by how an archive fuctions as well as by the aesthetics of science and the structure of an encyclopedia and the idea of rendering them in visual form”.
In Function of unfruitful expectations (2020) thehuman body is presented as an anatomy and paralleled with the spatial arrangement of a temple. “The idea is that just like the body is a phenomenon of the soul, likewise the temple reflects the structure of the human body”.
Τhe unexplored, the unchartedaspects of life are itsmost fascinating. Both art and science require imagination. Each in a different way knows the world in depth and believes in something ‘metaphysical’. I would like my make the viewer place something given in a new context.
The works of Papadopetrakis often seem like fragments of an imagined textual and visual puzzle. In an anagram system (2021) wordplays in Greek like “thili/lethe” (nipple and oblivion or lethe), “pano/apon” (above and absent) play with the meaning, spelling and sounds of wordstogether with their visual analogy. Unorthodox juxtapositions (between a butterfly and a t-bone steak) but eccentric yet existent morphological resemblances shapes or grammatically unconnected works hint at a deeper, underlying meaning to be discovered by an discerning observant and imaginative eye.
In the woodcut series skylos-kyklos– f (phi) bone steak (2018), Papadopetrakis creates idiosyncratic and surprising connections between content and form, at times with a discreet playfulness. Examples include the image of a curled up dog and that of circle joined with the words kyklos(circle) and skylos (dog) as different rearrangement of the same letters. In the same series, two words with the same sound but different meaning (dog in ancient Greek and column in ancient Greek architecture) are also connected through the circular motif of a dog’s nostrils and the voluted shapes of the Ionic capital). Also part of these sequential connections are the image of a t-bone steak that connotes both dog food and, according to the artist, the golden ratio of the Fibonacci sequence. The viewer suspects that unveiled before his eyes are aspects of a wisely designed structure of the world created by imagination and life itself.
The viewer is prompted to unlock the visual and conceptual enigmas. Consciously, the artist creates a sentiment of anticipation as a constant becoming but also as man’s existential need to attain a sense of wholeness. The image of an ark that is depicted both as body and temple symbolizes this wholeness.
However, the work of Papadopetrakis suggests – with a somewhat lacanian nuance – that this existential need is never fulfilled. Trapped in a constant self-repetion it pervades life from birth to death. His work highlights alingering, persistent feeling between incompleteness and wholeness. “The semi-circular shape of a crescent moon, the dog (as a holy animal/protector) and the circle constitute an allegory of an ideal state of wholeness. Conversely, man, the moon’s elliptical orbit around the earth, the changes in the inside of banana as it grows to ripeness and the number of days in a year hint at time, erosion and an unfulfilled anticipation”. Man is trapped between the awareness of eternity and the ephemeral with life’s vain pleasures. Conceptually rich, the work of Euripides Papadopetrakis lifts objects and motifs from triteness or the everyday the mundane and places them in his own “philosophically nuanced” worldview built through forms and visual synthesis.
Euripides Papadopetrakis (b. 1988) studied engraving, painting and the art of book making at the Athens School of Fine Arts where he also completed his graduate degree. He has co-founded artistic groups and art spaces. He has lectured and held workshops on engraving in various public and private institutions. In 2023 he co-published with Vicky TsirouBURR (Dolce pub), a book on engraving. He also teaches and works with Dimitris Papaioannou on the later’s visual art productions. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions sometimes as a curator. Living Monuments, his first solo exhibition was will present his second solo exhibition at a.antonopoulou.art in the fall of 2025.
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