Animated Connotations
If modern painting is marked by a return to representation at the expense of
both abstract and conceptual art, we owe it to artists like Nikos Moschos,
Adaptation Conditions
The main question in this body of work is the adaptation procedure in new conditions, the idea of continuous transition, the reconstitution of material, notions and consequently of human mentality.
“Marginally human”/ Works 2012-2019
Nikos Moschos reminds us that the primary role of artists is to represent to the world pictures that originate from a deep and sustained conversation with their inner selves and with others. To succeed, in the first instance, the conversation with oneself should not be a self-absorbed solipsistic lyric but rather offer a structured view of the world that is constructed from a personalized creation of myth and cosmos that is consistent and accessible for its repetition of line, color, form, mass, and icon.
“Marginally human”/ Works 2012-2019
A reading of Nikos Moschos’s painting
In October 1966, L’Arc magazine published a long article by Jean-Paul Sartre on Tintoretto’s painting Saint George and the Dragon.1 In this paper the French philosopher’s profound observations turn the ordinary subject of the painting into a tale of adventure. Sartre begins with the painter’s relation with the depicted characters and their actions. It is a multifaceted relation, he claims, and sometimes a hostile one, since the characters here are seen as agents, bearers of a moral principle.
Nikos Moschos was born in 1979 in Herakleion, Crete, studied at the ASFA and lives in Athens. His works depict human limbs, mechanical components, architectural elements, animal and plant parts, ancient statues, and numerous unspecified elements combined in confusing as well as terrifying tableaux. Pop aesthetic, encounters realistic painting and combines psychedelic elements in images reminiscent of advertising motifs. In ‘’You are already in the party’’, Moschos presents an interior rich in mental associations. Musical notes meet an extended arm that holds a coffee cup; a mouth with dazzlingly white teeth brings to mind toothpaste commercials, while two angry animal eyes are staring at the viewer.
Inevitable Nature
Nikos Moschos’ landscapes do not depict a specific time or place like impressionism. They form a collage of elements that create both familiar and unexpected perceptions of reality.
The new works of Nikos Moschos reflect the progress of the series presented in his two previous shows in 2012 and 2013, which had the title: 'The Marriage of Flesh and Machine'.
These works portray compositions which are built extensively by the crushing of disproportionate human body parts, machines, trees or new buildings.
These elements are sometimes recognizable and sometimes undefined, they become members of a body where cause and effect coexist creating emotionally tensed situations.
"The Marriage of Flesh and Machine in the paintings of Nikos Moschos"
25/10/2012
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Dr Johnson(on the frontispiece of Hunter S. Thompson΄s, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas")
Nikos Moschos makes a convincing argument on the issue of what does one paint today. In an age where the medium has only one single choice: to reinvent itself ab initio (or at least beyond a certain point) in order to stand convincingly before the fairground of media, pop music and movies. In other words, to stand on its own two feet, to exist in an independent state, away from the mothball environment of museums and the (unbearable) weight of the past and of history (which weigh down far less on the media, pop music and films). Of course, nowadays, painting should be finding itself in a privileged position that contrasts with the commercial breakdown of other visual media-video, installations or photography - as well as the broad-ranging crisis they are facing (conceptual art is, yet again in its history, in danger of becoming an object of ridicule and caricature, due to its eccentricities).
"Peinture en effervescence"
19/12/2009
« … la ville ressemblait énormément à ce que j’avais imaginé afin qu’elle soit vraie.
Pourtant, je me sentais à la fois satisfait et, comme je m’y attendais, désorienté,
aussi joyeux que seul, sans pouvoir dormir,
comme Alice au pays des merveilles ».
John Fowles, Le mage
« Le peintre “apporte son corps”... ».
Paul Valéry
Il y a trois ans environ, lors de la première exposition personnelle de Nikos Moschos, je suis soudainement entrée dans le tréfonds de son monde densément construit et prêt à s’effondrer. Dans les quartiers en cours de construction sur les pentes cachées de Néos Kosmos à Athènes, dans l’ombre des maisons néoclassiques en suspens et des gigantesques affiches palimpsestes, dans les carcasses vieillissantes des immeubles populaires, auprès des fleuves multicolores que constituent les constructions se dressant illégalement, j’ai rencontré sa peinture impétueuse et audacieuse.
Dans son premier ensemble pictural, le jeune artiste a fait sienne la notion de monde habité et chargé de mémoire, il a traduit, avec une habileté remarquable, l’environnement construit, étouffant et ténébreux de la ville, il a transformé avec une maturité ingénieuse et d’inépuisables inventions techniques la succession de motifs densément construits dans des tableaux déstructurés autonomes, avec une mémoire incertaine et en façonnant des mythes intrinsèques, en détruisant l’image cohérente du tissu urbain, en inversant la narration des actions et des héros de ses tableaux, en supprimant les issues potentielles et apaisantes pour le regard, en décrivant la violence suicidaire du temps présent, en reflétant la matière première crue de son univers intime.
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