Figure (from the series “My Phantoms”), 1994

Thodoros Papayannis made the human figure practically his exclusive subject, but liberated from any trite naturalistic stylization. His knowledge of ancient Greek civilization and the broader Mediterranean region, Greek folk tradition and his post-graduate studies in Paris later on, nourished, by the stimuli they offered him, the formation of his style.

Using stone, marble, bronze and clay, he gave form to his earliest, tectonic compositions, which were formed by means of geometric volumes. From around the middle of the Eighties his tendency toward ever increasing schematization has been expressed through the use of more curved lines and he has thus been led to larger-than-life-size totemic figures, references to the imposing divinities of ancient civilizations which take their form through a combination of wood, iron, polyester fibers, and various metals, as well as readymade materials that are reused.

One particular entity of his work is the series “My Phantoms”, consisting of figures tragic and at the same time repulsive, made of old wood and iron, remnants of sections of the National Technical University burned by vandals in 1994, which express the artist’s protest against violence and waste.