Question of faith

Question of faith

Pantelis Chandris

11.04.2013 - 25.05.2013

Two years after his last solo show, Man is an island, Chandris participation in a group show consisted of four open books made of cement. An intricate structure emerged from and sank back into the pages of the books. They were manuals for the construction of a shelter (bunker). In his new exhibition, these formulations are folded back and a bulky, closed cement book takes their place.

This new series of works is framed by islands. Heath, deserted and uncanny locales. Nature here seems to be reclaiming her primitive ferocity. Two video projections reveal four different locations in the form of rocky islands rotating around their axis. Four locations – four islands trace out a space that floats between reality and imagination.

Through a variety of visual manipulations, Chandris like a contemporary naturalist-traveller, reveals the constant dialectic between space and the different temporalities. In a series of self-contained drawings of high accuracy and detail, he imprints the locale’s morphological transformations under the different light depending on the motion of the sun and moon. The absence of color in the drawings and the lack of representation of the elements of sky and sea further intensify the enigma of the islands’ actual location and even their existence.

Chandris composes a hybrid landscape through drawing, tracing and printing on different types of paper. Imprints of constellations on black tracing paper are transformed into delicate protective shells that replace the islands. The starry night becomes the site. Wooden meter sticks compose an in situ installation attempting to construct an imaginary place. Can these inhospitable volumes be measured?

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