15.03.06 - 06.05.06

Untitled, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 80 X 60 cm


Charisis draws familiar children's toys and brings them together in compositions that suggest unexpected combinations.

The artist reconstructs the world of childhood fantasy, making reference to the social environment of alienation, within a frame where the innocence of the child seems like tragic irony. His images originate from the way the plot is constructed in traditional story tales, where Tom-Thumb is abandoned by his father in the woods, the Wolf finally eats the Little Red-Riding-Hood and the Matchbox Girl dies homeless in the cold. The artist draws the plastic toys with absolute accuracy, referring to the use of the ready-made object, yet avoids the danger that lurks through the appeal of realistic drawing.

His forms, where the delicacy of the child's toy co-exists with the social nature of the human form, transmit through their sarcasm the agony of the times, following the child's attempt to simulate reality while playing. Charisis poses questions that relate to the intentional disguise of everyday's harshness through the acceptance of a world where violence and war appear as its indispensable fragments. The artist reacts to the cruelty of the society where everything is acceptable provided that it is attractively presented.

Charisis' work, raged nevertheless deeply human, manages to make its point, devoid of redundant sentiments.

This is the artist's 4th solo exhibition.

image gallery