Memory, 1983

Giorgos Chouliaras fashioned his own personal style through his studying under Yannis Pappas at the Athens School of Fine Arts, his close examination of ancient Greek art and the folk tradition, and the contact with contemporary trends. These elements have determined the use his materials are put to – porous stone, plain stone, granite and cement initially, and then later marble, bronze, aluminum, steel and iron.

The human figure was his main preoccupation in his earliest compositions, but rendered very schematically, containing elements borrowed from folk sculpture. His inclination toward abstraction had made itself obvious by the beginning of the Eighties, with works such as “Memory”, carved in granite, stone or marble. These compositions are the result of the plastic fashioning of a compact volume with ridges and depressions based on geometric or organic shapes, which allow the light to traverse the surface, thus projecting both the shapes and the texture of the material.