Art Gallery Alma Mater (62, Emmanouil Benaki Street, Exarcheia, Athens), in collaboration with art curator Paris Kapralos and the visual arts promotion platform ARTgrID, presents the solo painting exhibition by Andreas Sinopoulos titled “The Harsh Terrain of Painting” and invites the art‑loving public to its opening on Friday 20 February at 19:00.
Documentation Text
The exhibition highlights painting as a field of continuous and intensive practice, where form arises through sustained engagement with material, rhythm and time. Viewers are invited to enter this space with their own quiet participation. The series “Blue and Red” by Andreas Sinopoulos, which is largely featured in the exhibition, forms a coherent group of works from the early period of his artistic path, dating from 2008 to 2012. It represents a personal archaeology of the established painter, dealing with psychological and emotional states as well as lived realities that operate beneath the surface, both personal and beyond the individual, without seeking to externalize themselves through recognizable narratives. Occasionally recognizable images appear, but this occurs through the evolution of the work itself and without intent. Most pieces were created using blue and red inks on a white background, usually paper, treated as an active field of action.
The act of painting is conceived as an intensive and repetitive process. The linear gesture functions as a carrier of rhythm and temporality, recording the intensity of experience through accumulations, densities and shifts in the mark. Colour takes on both structural and emotional roles without suggesting symbolic iconography. The whiteness of the paper remains present as a space for breathing and pause, allowing the viewer to perceive the duration and pulse of the gesture. The work unfolds as a trace of an inner flow that does not attempt to represent but to activate.
From a theoretical perspective, the series can be seen as painting that embodies both inscription and physical engagement. The repetition of gesture acts as a formal tool, through which fields of intensity and concentration are created. The process itself proves to be a way of understanding and experiencing inner time. The work does not impose meaning — it offers meaning. It presupposes the quiet participation of the viewer, who is asked to synchronise with the rhythm of creation and experience painting as an event.
Historically, this body of work belongs to the lineage of European gestural abstraction and art informel, while it enters into dialogue with practices where writing becomes a form of painterly thought. The affinity with artists such as Hans Hartung, Henri Michaux and Mark Tobey relates to the way line functions as a vessel of psychic energy. At the same time, the emphasis on ink and paper brings the work back to the realm of drawing, highlighting the importance of manual practice in an era of increasing dematerialization of the image. In terms of colour, this body of work illuminates the subtle nuances that a single colour can hold.
Presenting these works in 2026 does not function as a retrospective gesture of nostalgia. Instead, it highlights a phase in Sinopoulos’s artistic journey that constitutes a critical point in the formation of his artistic consciousness. These are works that capture life experience and the psychic intensity of a specific period, acting as inner landscapes that preceded later formal shifts and different artistic approaches. Their public presentation today enables an understanding of continuity and coherence in a path that did not develop linearly but through successive depths.
The artist himself regards figurative, expressionist and gestural painting as equally valid means of expression, without hierarchy or ideological constraint. The different forms operate interstitially, in reciprocal relationship, as tools activated according to the needs of each period. Although in recent years his work has moved mostly toward figuration, his stance remains open and undogmatic, focused on the essence of the act of painting and the continuous training of the gaze.
A characteristic remark by the artist on the importance of figurative study — partly undertaken and mainly pursued as ongoing learning — is that he sees it as the foundation and criterion of painting, analogous to training in music or dance. Persistence in study, discipline, and the time of the process constitutes an attitude of responsibility toward art, as Jason Kaerofylas notes in the following comment on a brief text by Sinopoulos: “What resonates from your writing is that figuration here does not function as a technical choice, but as an attitude of responsibility toward art. In an age eager to deconstruct what is considered ‘traditional’, insisting on study, discipline and the slow cultivation of the gaze appears almost as an act of resistance. And you mention music and dance rightly: no one asks a musician to abandon scales to be considered contemporary. Why should we ask it of a painter? The documented passage from phase to phase in a portrait returns us to the body of the work, to its time, to the gesture that remains, not merely to the result. And there, precisely, is the weight of consistency.”
This exhibition invites the works to be read as an integral part of a broader artistic path, where gesture, mark‑making and figurative study coexist as expressions of a unified stance toward painting. These works illuminate an internal phase that deserves visibility, not as a closed chapter, but as an active substrate upon which later investigations were built. Through this public presentation, the art‑loving public is invited to get to know a less exposed aspect of Sinopoulos’s practice, which contributes significantly to understanding his overall journey and his consistent relationship with the act of painting.
Brief biography of Andreas Sinopoulos
Andreas Sinopoulos is a painter. He was born in Athens in 1961, where he lives and works. He studied Painting at the School of Fine Arts – Visual Arts Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, under the mentorship of Makis Theofylaktopoulos. He also took printmaking classes with Giorgos Milios and Art History with Niki Loizidi. Between 1979 and 1982 he studied at ASETEM‑SELETE, attending courses in Pedagogy. He is a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece (EETE).
Since 1999 he has taught in the Painting Workshop of the Municipality of Zografou in Athens. In 2007 he turned mainly to non‑figurative painting while remaining active in figurative work.
In January 2020 a comprehensive presentation of his work to date was held at the IANOS bookstore, curated by historian and architect Kostas Kazamiakis, with contributions from poet Giorgos Gotis and photographer Haris Kakarouhas.
He has collaborated with painters and iconographers on church murals with Kostas Georgakopoulos (1984), Chrysogonos Karachalios and Ioannis Christopoulos (1992–1994), and painter Kostas Papatriantafyllopoulos (2003–2004). His special engagement with Far Eastern art led him to study the Japanese language, earning a diploma in 1995. Since 2004 he has researched the polychromy of ancient sculpture.
He has exhibited his work in three solo and selected group exhibitions in Greece and Belgium from 1990 to the present. His works are held in private collections. Alongside the visual arts, he has been involved in poetry since the 1980s, with numerous publications in respected literary magazines.
Exhibition Duration
The exhibition runs from 20 February to 1 March 2026 at Art Gallery Alma Mater, and simultaneously online via the ARTgrID platform (https://artgrid.gr) for one month.
Opening Hours / Days: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 19:00 – 22:00. On other days the gallery is open by appointment only at 6972445353. Free admission.
A catalogue in Greek and English has been published and is available free of charge to all visitors.
Instagram
#AndreasSinopoulosArtist
Website
artgrid.gr/andreas-sinopoulos/
About the Curator
Paris Kapralos is an art curator, co‑founder of ARC – Art Revisited Collective, founder of ARTgrID and publisher of Arts & Antiques CCR. He was born in 1975 and grew up in Athens, where he lives and works. He studied Economics (Athens) and Arts & Design (Staffordshire, England). He initially worked as a journalist specializing in technology (1999–2006), then became involved in organising business conferences, and shifted his professional direction to the field of art in 2011. He served as Director of Myrό Gallery (2011–2015), Head of the Art Department at Myrό Antiques House (2015–2017), and Art co‑ordinator of the international Contemporary Sculpture Symposia of the Greek Marble Initiative (2013–2018). From 2018 onwards he has worked as an independent organiser and curator of visual art exhibitions & events, curating and organising more than 200 exhibitions, symposia, visual art projects and participations in Greece and abroad. Details: https://artgrid.gr/paris-kapralos/
About ARTgrID
ARTgrID is a company dedicated to promoting and supporting quality visual art by contemporary artists through specialised digital services, organising physical events, projects and collaborations across the arts sector. It provides services for organising exhibitions, symposia, visual art actions, creating and hosting artist websites, and advancing visual artists. Information: https://artgrid.gr
About Alma Mater
Art Gallery “Alma Mater” is located in the heart of Athens, in Exarcheia. It is housed in a restored neoclassical residence built before 1890. In Latin “Alma Mater” literally means “nourishing mother” and is commonly used symbolically for the discipline that nurtures human development. Likewise, the founders’ vision is for the gallery to function as an “alma mater” for the intellectual and aesthetic advancement of the city. In addition to exhibition facilities, the gallery offers resources for hosting events. More information: https://almamater.gr
Media Sponsors
Arts & Antiques CCR
Polis Magazino
