Chris Akordalitis’s humane characters find excuses to meet and giggle in stressful times.
Cypriot visual artist Chris Akordalitis returns to Dio Horia in Mykonos for his first solo exhibition in Greece. The exhibition ‘Between Worlds’ will be opening on July 10. The artist will be present online via Instagram live. Chris Akordalitis’s artistic practice consists of oil paintings and ceramics. He studied in the Kunst academy in Düsseldorf where he studied painting under Prof. Andreas Schulze and sculpture under the artist Tony Cragg. Akordalitis is a scene-maker: his paintings and sculptures always show cartoon-like figures that are set in some predetermined topographical landscape and in a specific time of day. He builds his scenes carefully so that they balance between the real, the comical and the nostalgic, using objects, food and pets, as props for action to take place and feelings to be revealed. In ‘Between Worlds’, Akordalitis presents a group of paintings full of humor, hope and humanity that depict ordinary pleasures experienced before and while being in the middle of a global coronovarius pandemic. The artist’s works seem to be implying that whoever you are, whatever you’ re doing, whatever stressful time you might be living through, a tiny part of you knows that while assessing the risks, you could also do with a bit of pleasure right now. It may seem too simple to be true but shifting our attention to the small, everyday pleasures in our lives can offset the consequences of stress or negative events. Each work in the exhibition, stands as a message conveying a personal moment of simple pleasure. Flowers and fruits and beaches and nature are featured strongly, together with people savouring them and others reflecting on the added pleasure of recalling such moments. In the artworks certain gestures are being exaggerated in order to maximize the value of positive experiences and emotions. Prolonged tongues licking lemons or breasts, flowers used as human accessories, big smiles and sharp noses, are all used as mechanisms for the artist to be silly in them and delight himself and his viewer with acts of kindness. With tiny moments from different worlds being the starting point for Chirs Akordalitis’s exhibition, ‘Between Worlds’ aims to take its visitor out of his routine and put him in touch with his surroundings in a new way. Even if his surroundings are currently an online screen or a cramped urban terrace.
