Kifissia 1973

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas made this landscape called Kifissia using what looks like short, hatched brushstrokes in a warm and earthy colour palette. I imagine the artist outdoors surrounded by nature, looking, pausing, responding, building the painting up slowly, allowing it to emerge through trial, error, and intuition. I can imagine Ghikas standing there, looking, thinking, and feeling. What he might have been thinking when he made it? The paint isn’t obviously thick or thin but the surface texture of the hatch marks creates depth and a sense of atmosphere, all those little lines capturing the feeling of being in a specific place, perhaps the light reflecting off of stone or foliage. I am drawn to the way the lines that build the painting also make up the shapes of the buildings and natural forms. Each hatch is a small observation, and together they create a larger whole. Artists are always in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity, finding new ways of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world. It's an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.