Follies

Dimitris Kokoris

November 14 - December 7, 2024 Athens

Follies,
triptych, acrylic on canvas,
150 x 100 cm
2024

Follies– from the French word for madness (folie) – are called the enigmatic architectural structures that spread across gardens in Europe, predominantly in Britain, during the 17th and 18th centuries, mainly in the form of sham ruins. The evocative setting of half-ruined castles, crumbling arches, broken colonnades and extravagant buildings became popular as garden designers of the time popularised the idea to “create your own ruin.” In his second solo exhibition at Alma Gallery, entitled Follies, visual artist Dimitris Kokoris introduces us to the mysterious environment of “his own ruin,” where decaying building skeletons intertwine with fragments of sculptures, strange plants, bizarre creatures and dismembered human parts. Just as follies, those eccentric garden constructions, lured walkers to further exploration and offered the thrill of discovery, Kokoris’ artworks contain a series of eye-catching surprises that provide us with a different perspective depending on our point of view.

Abandoned shack,
acrylic on canvas,
100 x 70 cm
2023

In the works, ambiguous figures invade an imaginary space that could come from the past or designate a dystopian future. The prominence of the looming vegetation, which seems alive, or even supernatural, replete with lurking secrets, evokes both awe and uneasiness. The artist draws without a preliminary sketch, directly on the canvas with a brush or on the paper with a pen, with the condensation of information creating the feeling that it could exceed the limits of the work. This sense of horror vacui (fear of the empty space), this tendency to occupy the entire surface, is also transferred to the visual narrative. The intricate, labyrinthine plot is breathtaking, creating a claustrophobic Gothic novel atmosphere, which manifests visually, often with dark humour, through a paradoxical anatomy: the hybrid creatures that emerge and invite us to contemplate the material of our own being, seem to have been constructed in Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory.

Carnal,
acrylic on canvas,
160 x 130 cm
2024

A head stuck to a foot, a sheep sprouting from a tree branch, a mouse with an elephant’s trunk - the focusing of the gaze reveals a fascinating fantasy world with countless grotesque creatures that could have escaped from a medieval illustrated Bestiary. This re-inscription of motifs of the past in a timeless dystopian post-industrial setting underlines their durability through time (from Bosch and Bruegel to Remedios Varo and Mu Pan) while offering a visual experience of resistance to the contemporary disenchantment of the world. By incorporating anthropomorphic creatures that carry a clanky post-punk aesthetic (an outgrowth of the appropriation of the Gothic by the British music scene of the late 1970s), the artist’s own ruin is transformed into a collective space for reflection on the current follies of information overload, violence, urban decay, environmental collapse, and, ultimately, on what it means to be human.

Dr. Maria Vara Department of Art Theory and History Athens School of Fine Arts