Kouros… from life (2018)
At the Café of the National Archaeological Museum

05/09/2018 - 04/11/2018

Curator: George Mylonas, Art Historian

With this project, I attempted to communicate, to the extent that I am able, the emotions I felt in the time I spent drawing and studying at the Museum.  My initial fear and awe gradually turned into joy, into intellectual and aesthetic elation, as I discovered the rhythm, the meter, the balance and, at the same time, the freedom that are concealed within this type of ancient art.

And so it was that the rhythmical and almost mathematical way of developing the decorative motifs of geometric vases1, the sculptural concentration and expressiveness of the bronze geometric figurines2, and the marble tenderness of the youthful flesh of the archaic Kouroi3 were incorporated almost unconsciously into my work, and interacted with contemporary youths. A series of works was thus created, which attempts to render the Spring of life through painting! And it is there, somewhere, that we can find the golden mask of the king of Mycenae4, Agamemnon, buried deep in the bowels of the earth, like a seed…

Alexandra Michali

1Vase collection- geometric period
2bronze collection- geometric period
3sculptures collection-archaic period
4Mycenae, Grave Circle A, 1