Sculpture,  Visual Arts

Florina Sculpture Symposium

12th July 2023 /

Marble Sculpture Symposium in Florina

My long journey from Athens to Florina was to see the last days of the Florina Marble Sculpture Symposium with the participation of four renowned Greek sculptors Vasilis Vasili, Panayiotis Lamprou, Dimitris Skalkotos, and Odysseas Tosounidis.

The Symposium took place within the framework of the cultural interventions of the School of Fine Arts of Florina. The purpose was to highlight the school’s contribution through strengthening the city’s cultural identity and its promotion. For 25 days – from 8 June to 2 July – the residents of the border city of Northwestern Greece had the opportunity to see for the first time how sculptors transformed huge blogs of raw marble from Kozani into forms of expression of emotions and ideas. 

For me, it was an  unprecedented experience too. In this symposium, there wasn’t a thematic unit. The sculptors were free to express themselves openly and experiment with new forms. All four sculptures are based on drafts modified along the way based on the inspiration of the moment and the challenges presented to the sculptors by the material they had to deal with. The four sculptures will remain in Florina City and be the property of the School of Fine Arts of Western Macedonia.

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Dimitris Skalkotos

The sculpture is entitled "Improvisation" and is a study of the realistic but also the perpetual emotional movement of people. With a highly abstract shape, Skalkotos depicts three bodies on the marble volume. Each one is the carrier of three different emotions. Those together form the shape of a closed hairpin in a fluid, highly danceable form. Until now, Skalkotos' sculptures had references to letters and words, were based on straight lines, and were highly cubist. This period tired him out. So Florina is the first time he experimented on organic form, opening a new chapter in his work. Another new element that he introduces with this sculpture is the engravings of vertical and horizontal lines on the surface of the marble that give the work a painterly look.

These are the results of a spontaneous expression, especially in that he identifies on the sculpture vital human organs that carry emotions, such as the heart and the brain, not based on a blueprint. Both openings in the center and on the base of the sculpture have a symbolic meaning and refer to what he says “Everything begins from a void.” Thus relief areas mark the end and the beginning as an act of perpetual death and rebirth.

Panayiotis Lamprou

The sculpture belongs to a series of works by Lamprou that began in 2018, referring to the refugee issue, a topic he also dealt with in 2022 at the Patras Sculpting Symposium. As heavy and hard marble is, so is the subject the sculptor works on. The sculpture has a holistic meaning, existential for humanity, deeply rooted in the eternal need of people to flee from a hostile place in search of another in the promise of a better life. With Flonina's sculpture Lamprou also recalls the recent tragic shipwreck off Pylos, Greece, which he incorporates into the work, creating a cluster of human figures trying to surface as a single entity through an allegorically fluid world. The deeply carved horizontal grooves allude to the dynamics of human endeavor and the ever-increasing existence of the refugee crisis. While the original plan was to cover the entire surface of the sculpture with deep horizontal carvings, Lamprou ultimately preferred to leave some parts of the marble volume smooth and flat. The result is a visual balance between sculptural and conceptual contrasts, as flat surfaces can stand for the dead-ends or the unfulfilled dreams, expectations, and efforts for a better life.

Vasilis Vasili

For Vasilis Vasili, marble, from its creation as a raw material in the subsoil, carries a personal code that the sculptor must respect when giving it a new substance. The Florina work based on this philosophy is characterized by a deeply considered abstract version of the sculptural form, also found in other works by Vassilis. It bears two aspects that harmonize in the purity and simplicity of volumes and axes but contrast in tensions. While one side of the sculpture shows dynamic volumes and axes arrangements, the other develops more gently. Because of this relationship of independence and dialogue between the sides, viewers can read the work in two ways: from mild tensions to dynamic ones and vice versa. The sculpture rests on a base that does not simply support its main body. With the slope carved into the front, its base actively participates in the dynamics of the whole, forming a clockwise ramp that continues to the bottom of the sculpture counterclockwise this time. The next great dynamic axis is the obliquely carved block of marble, as a single axe wider in width above and narrower at its end, completely detached at 2/3. It seems to be trying to free itself from the flat surface that supports it in search of a self-existent existence. For this reason, Vasilis created a rough texture on the inner side of the volume and some anarchic surface engravings on the front that emphasize this attempt. The other side of the base and the main body present milder tensions of form and axes. The sculptor replaces the ramp with a step, while the main volume of the marble creates an angle with the base.

The chamfered rectangular shape, even though it remains attached to the main body of the sculpture, it is curved to look lighter than the front, emphasized by the axes created at the base. It is as if the sculptor had lifted it slightly further up, following the original call of the axes without seeking a complete detachment from the main body. An additional dynamic element of the Florina sculpture is the incorporation of the shadows natural light produces of the volumes and axes as part of the sculpture in the way they reflect on its flat surfaces.

Odysseas Tosounidis

The Florina sculpture exemplifies Odysseas Tosunidis' typical abstract form, aimed at capturing light and expressing his philosophy regarding the journey of life to death. The sculpture consists of three rectangular parallelepipedal volumes, each characterized by a different axial drawing. These volumes symbolize the linear propagation of light, its conversion into energy, and the commencement of its reverse trajectory. The central volume, despite being shorter in length, serves as the foundation for the other two volumes. Its uneven distribution of length on the tall base not only provides support but also possesses an independent spatio-temporal quality. This volume has achieved the velocity of light, transcending time and transforming the point in space into an event.

Photos: © athina’s

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