My Sources of Inspiration

How I see and feel this Greek nature:

From the Kambos on the island of Chios — Homer’s island — rocky and volcanic, grave and intense; ancient venerable olive trees with roots like serpents; almond trees alternating with orange trees; all punctuated by the verticals of magnificent cypresses of a deep green; thistles springing from stones on the rocky slopes.

The Kambos, a vast plain of orange trees with ancient Genoese-style houses and paved courtyards where imposing water wheels feed magnificent irrigation basins, bordered at the four corners by tall columns topped with abundant vine trellises, rose bushes and pomegranate trees dipping their branches into the water.

How I translate this Greek nature:

I do not paint a landscape from life, nor copy a site or view; my approach is quite different. After long and intense observation, I evoke an element that interests and exalts me, and I compose around it.

I build a highly structured composition in which each element is subordinated to the whole in a unified, passionate rhythm, all preceded by several studies and drawings.

Nights inspire me particularly — dark threatening nights accompanied by frequent earthquakes. As a boy I had to bravely guard the harvests, and in isolation my imagination conjured spectres.

The memory of an Aegean Sea unleashed in an epic storm also inspired several paintings. My way of translating this Greek Nature is therefore very far from what one often sees — little white houses silhouetted against a blue sky and a flat sea.