October 2009 - January 2010

A retrospective exhibit of Marcos Kambanis. 

Marcos Kambanis, a multi-faceted creator with exceptional and rich work in painting, engraving and illustration of books, and iconography, presented an important selection of his work related to Mount Athos in the exhibit halls of the Mount Athos Center.

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With 12 individual painting and engraving exhibits in Greece and abroad, with contributions to the “Biennale” of Alexandria and to Art Athina, Marcos Kambanis is concentrating on the Holy Mountain in paper icons and engravings.  He works in the preservation and printing of old bronze-engraved plaques in the Karies workshop.

His first engravings were created in bronze and, with a wealth of his work being in this area, he has published four albums on this subject.

In the Exhibit, twenty four paintings, twenty nine sketches, thirty four engravings, two paper icons and 22 book illustrations were presented.

Oversight of the exhibit: Anastasios Douros

 

The artist

Marcos Kambanis was born in Athens in 1955

He studied painting beginning in 1974 in Wimbledon and at Saint Martin’s School of Art in London, where he lived until 1980.  He also apprenticed for a number of months at the conservation workshop of Stavros Michalarias in London and in the engraving workshop “Apollo Etching Studio.”

In 1983 he lived for 6 months in Florence painting landscapes and studying the museums of Italy.

He has done 15 individual exhibits and has taken part in a number of group exhibits both in Greece and abroad.  He also took part in the 15th “Biennale” in Alexandria in 1984.He concentrates on painting, engraving, illustration of books and the iconography of church buildings, while in the past he also involved in set design for films. He is a curator fo the Athonite Gallery of the Holy Monastery of SimonoPetra, which is primarily interested in the artwork of contemporary artists who have been inspired by the Holy Mountain and by the history of religious engraving.

Since 1990 he has been visiting the Holy Mountain frequently and, therefore, a large part of his work is related to it.  Athos and its monastic state have frequently been a source of inspiration for his paintings, sketches, engravings and book illustrations.  Likewise, he has created a significant number of his works at the Holy Mountain (paintings for the ceilings of the Holy Monastery of Simonopetra, frescoes at the Holy Monastery of Panagia Portaitissa in Kornofolia- a dependency of the Holy Monastery of Iviron-, creation of the engraving workshop in Karies, as part of the attempt that is underway for the preservation, study and projection of Athonite engraving).  He has done the research and scholarship for the publication Spiros Papaloukas-Period at Athos for all of the Athonite work of the great Greek painter.  He has also done the research and scholarship for the exhibit The Holy Mountain in Greek Art which was organized by the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank and the Athonite Gallery.

The exhibit at the Mount Athos Center showcased extensive samples of the activities of Marcos Kambanis that have been done over the past 20 years that have a relationship with the Holy Mountain.

 

Critical acclaim

 

“These engravings, brightened by indirect light, like the Sun as it sets, show the effort of the artist to record his vision and needlework that press their imprints, one by one, onto the handmade paper.  Or, to say it differently:  you discern the struggle of the engraver to scratch his sketch on the hard surface and the patience of the handworker who carefully impresses his work upon the pliable paper.”

Archimandrite Vasileios, Proigoumenos of Iviron

 

“…A tireless scholar of the holy mountain, a lover of Greek nature and the vastness of the Aegean, he researches, ponders, and re-examines his personal experiences and without being interested in picturesque or faithful renderings of things he succeeds in transforming his fragile painted surface into image and likeness.

An exceptional designer, correct practitioner in the handling of materials, with total command over his means of expression and with clarity in writing, he knows how to underline in his works their essential content and to reveal the timeless sensory values that influence and guide him.

Painting on the Holy Mountain, Marcos Kambanis avoids the pitfall of ancestor worship and manages to show in a unique way the harmony between the divine and the human, the symbolic and the real, and between objects and living things.

In the works from the Holy Mountain, he transforms this unique place, the ark of Byzantine and modern Greek Orthodox Tradition, into atmospheric canvases, into works somewhere between dream and reality.

The most important element, however, is that it constitutes a rare example of productive processing and diversion from traditional imaging and techniques into more contemporary concerns and more personal pursuits.

Therefore it isn’t by chance that this deep scholar, mindful of Byzantine technique, through the use of byzantine under-painting and successive colored layers, gives his aesthetic accomplishments a new meaning, a meaning almost metaphysical and simultaneously transmits the priceless artistic values of Greek painting tradition.”

Mary Michailidou, Art Historian, June 2009