ISTANBUL
28 November 2021 – 28 January 2022

The Mount Athos Center in Thessaloniki, in collaboration with the General Consulate of Greece in Istanbul, is presenting an exhibition of paintings by the British artists Doug Patterson and Tim Vyner entitled ‘Artistic Travels on Mount Athos’.  

The exhibition will be held for a period of two months at the Sismanogleio Megaro in Istanbul and will be officially opened at 18.30 on Sunday 28 November 2021.

The opening ceremony will be honoured by the presence of His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and will also be attended by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Andreas Katsaniotis, and the Deputy Minister of Education, Mrs. Zeta Makri.

 

In its desire to honour His All Holiness’s tireless and long-standing contributions to Orthodoxy and the Greek people and to support the invaluable cultural work of the General Consulate of Greece in Istanbul, the Mount Athos Center is restaging this exhibition in order to inspire the Greek community in Istanbul and to bring it a taste of Greece and Mount Athos.

Doug Patterson and Tim Vyner are two contemporary British artists, who have travelled and worked on Mount Athos over the last twenty years, continuing the long tradition of traveller-artists who have travelled around the Athonite republic recording its architecture and the daily lives and worship of its monks. In the course of their travels they have recorded – each in his own personal artistic idiom – their experiences, thereby creating extensive collections of artworks which are now managed by the Mount Athos Center.  

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The work by these two contemporary traveller-artists is being presented for the second time in a joint exhibition (the first exhibition was presented in Belgrade in 2016 as part of the Mount Athos Center’s participation in the 23^rd International Conference of Byzantine Studies), while it was originally presented in two separate exhibitions at the Mount Athos Center in Thessaloniki. In 2011 an exhibition of Doug Patterson’s work was presented under the title ‘Painting in Holy Places: Athos – Sinai’, while two years later the artist himself proposed the creation of a joint scholarship by the Mount Athos Center and the Royal College of Art in London that would enable graduates of the RCA to travel and paint on Mount Athos.   

The first recipient of the scholarship was Tim Vyner, who carried out three long tours on Mount Athos in 2013 and, after visiting its twenty monasteries and various sketes and cells, completed his artworks, which were later presented in the exhibition space of the Mount Athos Center in 2014, in a large exhibition entitled ‘A Life Experience on Mount Athos’.     

In the following excerpt Doug Patterson describes the experiences of his visits to Mount Athos:
I first visited Mount Athos in 2002. I caught the boat from Ouranoupolis to Daphne, where I disembarked in order to immediately change boat. Then I sailed along the coast towards Karoulia. Nothing in my life could have ever prepared me for this unique journey, its monumental dimension, its grandeur and the unexpected intimacy of the view. I was moved by the architecture of the monasteries perched like eagles’ eyries on the rock faces. In my notebook I sketched the scene quickly in an effort to convey the subtle gradations of colour and to capture the fleeting effect of the light and the atmosphere. It was then that I realised that Mount Athos undoubtedly occupies a special place among the spiritual centres of the world.         

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Below are two excerpts from the extensive text by Tim Vyner in the catalogue of the exhibition of his own work:
My participation in monastic life allowed me to observe at close quarters the strict daily programme of the fathers, which is based on a tradition of prayer and meditation. Every father, novice, pilgrim and casual labourer is a part of this very distinctive way of life on Mount Athos. Among them are cooks, carpenters, scholars, gardeners, builders and artists. They all actively share in the spiritual wealth and together create the unique life of each monastic community. I used vivid watercolours to convey this balance between the demands of monastic life, unceasing prayer and the spirit of friendship and community.
This multifaceted collection is the result of personal experiences. Whether I use the traditional techniques of watercolour or drawing with Indian ink, or hi-tech digital media such as an iPad, my work is based on on-site experiences and tries to convey the experiential dimensions of place and time. Although this collection respects a way of life that has barely changed in the last thousand years, I have attempted to highlight typical moments that characterise life on Mount Athos today.                   

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For each exhibition a sumptuous catalogue was published containing all of the artist’s work on Mount Athos.   

Exhibition curator: Anastasios Douros, Director of the Mount Athos Center
 
Information:
Exhibition venue: Sismanogleio Megaro, Istanbul (Istiklal Cad. No 60, 34433 Istanbul, Galatasaray - Beyoglu)
Official opening: Sunday 28 November 2021, 18.30
Duration of exhibition: 28 November 2021 – 28 January 2022
Opening hours: Owing to the public health measures, the exhibition can be viewed by invitation only. For further information please call +90 212 244 86 40 or send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.