RECENT WORK

“I don’t have any politics. I’m an observer".

-Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

(A)POLITICAL is a series of collages informed and inspired by the anti-war photomontages of John Heartfield and Peter Kennard, Soviet Constructivist propaganda posters, punk rock and black metal artwork, Dadaist graphic design, and contemporary political artists such as Jamie Reid and Barbara Kruger. It comments upon issues such as inequality, greed, power abuse, fascism, racism, human rights, activism, militarism, capitalism and the "new world order".

The work combines fragments of urban street posters with photographs found in second-hand books, journals and magazines. It portrays a dystopian reality where the prevailing mood is that of pessimism, continuous struggle and existential despair. Images of politicians, dictators, priests and religious leaders intertwine with pictures of suffering immigrants, crying children, angry protesters, anti-authoritarian rebels, insurrectional texts and anarcho-punk iconography. This clash of opposing elements gives birth to bleak palimpsests which reflect the various contrasting elements of a society that must be constantly prepared for the next protest, riot or war.

By contemplating the various layers of this visual study the beholder can distinguish an underlying need for creating a different kind of socio-political model. With its harsh and crude imagery the project expresses the overarching atmosphere of disillusionment with electoral politics, state oppression, governmental and religious corruption, police brutality, fake urban lifestyles, obsessive-compulsive consumer habits and commodity society in general. If someone compares the artificiality and superficiality of today's postmodern capitalist way of life with the brutal assault these collages seem to unleash, they will realize that this is what the artist aims to achieve: a "radical incision" in the public consciousness.

https://www.hartismag.gr/hartis-56/fwtografia/apolitical