Zoumboulakis Galleries invite you to the solo exhibition “Digging” by Thomas Diotis, curated by Angeliki Baras. The exhibition is a visual passage through the dragon’s history, from its mythical composition to its digital hybridization. Diotis will present a dragon in monumental dimensions, as well as a series of drawings on different quality papers.
As Angeliki Bara, PhD candidate of the Athens School of Fine Arts, writes in her text: “Mythical creature under extinction or one of the protagonists of the digital era? The dragon stars in every combat between good and evil, balance and imbalance and other opposing functional forces of the world. Thomas Diotis presents the image of the dragon in its contemporary version, revealing new interpretations and through a visual redundancy incorporates both the past and the imagination. […]
An alchemical symbol associated with fire and chaos, the dragon is one of the most recognized mythical beasts, sometimes representing the sect or the wisdom. Imperious and imposing, with a dazzling look of vehicle lanterns and aerodynamic wings from bumpers and osteoderma from 1500 plastic chairs. The dragon is a hybrid mishmash of objects that the artist spotted on rural streets. It is giving the impression that the work wasn’t made by human hands, but that it was born in a factory. In fact, this dragon was constructed ascetically, in the artist’s open-air studio, under the sounds of lightning and the bell tower. The composition of the dragon was the result of a never-ending search for elements. Its surfaces vary between the infinitely thin and the bulky, while their organic composition is the result of thermal welds. Diotis manages, in a unique way, to connect materials with bold style, highlighting the complexity of the concept of the dragon through its visual metaphor in space.
Mapping the oddity of the dragon, Diotis presents drawings with figures guided by the flow of ink that straddle between zoological reality and the world of symbols. He is inspired by images taken from legends and folk tales, looking from the past to the future, treating the dragon as an evolving force that shapes our culture. The non-existentness of the dragon is presented as existing and triumphs against the perceptions that want him trapped in his own myth.”
Brief CV: Thomas Diotis (b.1986) lives and works between Athens and Agrinio. He graduated from Athens School of Fine Arts in 2019, under the supervision of George Lappas and Aphroditi Liti, in the department of sculpture. He recently completed his master in Athens School of Fine Arts MFA program. In 2018 he studied as a university scholar in Tokyo University of Fine Arts, Gedai, at the department of sculpture with Pr. Ohmaki Shingi as his supervisor. Diotis has held three solo exhibitions and one among them was placed in Tokyo. Most of his works are part of public and private collections in Greece and Japan. During his studies he participated in numerous group exhibitions in Museums and Art Fairs in Greece and Japan from 2014 with notable mentions such as: Ginza Chuouku, Tokyo, Japan (2018), National Sculpture Gallery, Athens (2017), “Hydra School project “POW BLOP WIZZ”, Hydra (2021),Back to Athens 7, International Art Festival 2020, Athens (2020), Antonis Volanakis, Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete (2019, Embassy of Italy in Athens (2019),Philippine Festival, Archaeological Site of Philippi, Museum of Natural History(2016), Benaki Museum, Athens (2016).
