Exhibition Catalogue

By presenting the Couch Exercises and the Scarves Laid with Tables series that followed immediately after, I hope to communicate to the art-loving public both the works and the fundamental quests that gave birth to them.

21 April by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis,
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

Those who see in my painting a notion of Greekness are right, with the difference that while Greekness as we know it from the movement Generation of the ‘30s, was more of a Geographical-based identity and of Ethnic Character, my Greekness is mainly of Civilizational identity. However, the present exhibition explores this collective notion through a series of personal quests.

6-5-92 Hourglass that steals water
like the grains of sand you stole
from us our brother as well,
until we overturn you
And time turns around
and you steal us
for the place where you can
no longer reach us.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

5-6-1992 Hourglass flow of death
chronological temple predatory
gate of souls and every grain
of the desert towards
the land of angels and winged men.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

First and foremost is the quest for the Sacred in art: From a young age, I challenged the prevailing materialistic model and with a comparative religious perspective, I sought the mystical experience in various traditions and systems. After wandering as a Prodigal Son for three years in a wretched psychophysical state, I was privileged to participate in the confessionary of the Saint David Chapel at the Latomos Monastery in Thessaloniki where, at the age of 25 in the early 1990s, I was given the mystical experience I was seeking. The concept of the Sacred is immediately followed by the concept of the Nous in Art. Why?

May 6, ‘92, by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

6-5-1992 Desert rectumpaper.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

If the Sacred is the highest and deepest element of creation, the highest and deepest element of human beings is the Nous. On Wikipedia in Greek, we read that the NOUS is synonymous with the intellect. Does this view perhaps stem from Saint Augustine, the fundamental Latin Father of Catholicism, who named the Nous “higher intellect” and the intellect “lower intellect”? Is that why modern Greeks today call intellectuals, spiritual? For the ancient and Byzantine Greeks, however, the Nous or Spiritual Eye or Heart is something else. By chance, in the Saint David Chapel where I had my experience, there is a depiction that illuminates its mysterious nature:

May 16 1992 by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis.
On a table, desert land, bible,
plate,coin, vitamin bottle,
Bic pen, teapot, cup, eyeglasses
gates of blind vision.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

May 19 1992 by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis
Sketch of table, ballpoint pen,
borrowed book, vitamin E bottle,
eyeglasses and thirsty toilet paper.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

I am referring to the pre-iconoclastic mosaic with the vision of the prophet Ezekiel, where the prophet ecstatically brings his Palms to his Ears. N.G. Pentzikis drew my attention to this, saying that the Prophet is “-caressing the vision”. In my opinion, the Ear and the Palm depict two aspects of the Nous sense, corresponding to the form of the Dove and the Tongue of Fire of the Holy Spirit. With the Couch Exercises, I focused on the Palm, and with the Scarfs, I expanded to the Ear, which is probably the intellectual, logical element of the spiritual that we all know.

May 26, 1992, by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis,
inside and outside the aqueduct ladder,
small tower, and disc water fish.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

On June 2, 1992, by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis,
On living room time flow
and clouds ashtray,
Hands-rolled smokes, lighter, cup,
cup, cup, enamel plate beloved,
teapot, plate large bearing plate,
and grape intoxication source of sober.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

Focusing initially on the Palm, I paid attention to how I felt while working, which I wanted to be a calm vigilance: I improvised, but based on a predetermined basic pattern that had been gradually revealed, working on the same subject at the same time every day: A living room table with its belongings in the midst of mountains, as a kind of island with sea all around and clouds above. (Later, I learned that the space surrounding the Holy Altar is referred to as the “Sea”. This made me wonder whether what I had painted was a revelation of what Saint Maximos the Confessor calls the “Type” of things.)

On June 3rd, 1992, by hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis
Within living room sea clouds,
table of mountain, inkwell shoe dye.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

June 15th hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis
Transfiguration of inkwell on table of sea
(of) lobster of flute of ashtray of small courtyard
in the desert spawned from memory
of the solitary heron.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

As we speak about the Palm, we refer to Touch and to the micro-rhythms that determine Texture. In the Couch Exercises, specifically we have Line Textures. Kandinsky’s correlation: Circle=Blue, Square=Red, Triangle=Yellow, leads to the concept of intelligible Color and intelligible Monochromaticism. The color of monochromaticism, the common linear texture in essence, also determined the shape of things.

July 7th, 1992
Table sketch shoe on table plate
empty vacant box of cigarettes the pen and spoon,
toothless matches ashtray, alcohol container
spirit of Jerusalem city.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

AUG 3 1992 hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis
Ottawa Canada.
On table cup, beer can, cassette, scissors, plater,
plater, box, box of cigarettes.
Christ.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

Next is the concept of improvisation that submits a different relationship with time. There is also a time limit: the work had to be completed in about an hour: it was not the work that needed time, but the time that needed work to fill and record it. The date was an important part of the signature. In the rare cases I worked on the same work for a second day, a second date was added. Do we perhaps aim to represent time through objects at a subconscious level? In any case I call works that somehow capture the moment chronographic:

“It doesn’t matter how long you can stand by the spring, you’ll always start over to observe the water. Because the water never stops flowing and relentlessly begins to surge again. The same happens to the one who fixes his gaze on God’s boundless beauty. He discovers it from the beginning and always sees it as something new and strange compared with what the intellect always understands. And as God continues to reveal himself, man wonders and marvels” Saint Gregory of Nyssa (337-395 AD)

September 12 1992 hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis:
Table ashtray, clock, lighter, pen, book,
remote control, heart spray.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

Rhodes October 21 1992 hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis
Table archaic doll of clay transparent plate
chalice pen claypot, paper,
kitchen paper in the wilderness.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

Closing, I will say that after the Couch Exercises, I moved on to Scarves laid with Tables where, as I mentioned above, I had the opportunity to experiment with more intellectual, formal issues where sporadically, as Father Symeon accurately pointed out, after I had touched the dual terrain of the Intelligible, I began to soar towards the Sensible, with the difference that, like a Paradisaea with its rhythmic plumage, I carried the Intelligible along with me. Captain Migas

24 April 1992, Dimitr.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

14th May, hand [D. Mistr[iotis]]
[on a table] [pen] [container]
[eyeglasses]
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

28 October 1992 hand of Dimitrios Mistriotis.
National Commemorative Bank Lamp,
lighter, flying watch, cologne,
kitchen paper in the desert.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

November 11, 1992 Chalkida hand.
Dimitriou Mistriotis. Field match.
Ink on paper , 32 x 24 (cm)

Salty like tears and the sea.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

Eucharistic.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

The Wheat the Oil the Wine and the Fish.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

Troglodytic.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

Sea Shell Hide.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

The poor man’s garden.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

I mourn my dead self.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)

Gestural mosaic.
Oil on canvas,
106 x 87 (cm)