Descendant of a rich tradition of Greek urban landscape, Foti Kllogjeri stands out for capturing movement, exploding colors, compositional skill, and an abstract approach to panoramic views of streets and buildings, urban noise and hustle, and the non-direct depiction of people, but rather their kinetic imprints and the sense of the city’s clamor. The painter responds in his own way, offering a contemporary and remarkable perspective. Movement is portrayed on the canvas, often devoid of emotion or with a concealed lyricism that reveals the contradictions and conflicting emotions of attraction and repulsion experienced by individuals in modern metropolises. It’s the city itself that interests the artist, as he “writes” in the human consciousness, inscribed in the collective unconscious.

The element that makes the artist’s approach unique is a delicate balance between gestural painting and the relationship with color that of a colorist, which he is. A neo-impressionistic sentiment emerges from his works, as the focal point of his attention is not anchored in what the eye sees but in the general impression the mind grasps at first glance. His works contain noise, and the overall result is a juxtaposition of opposing, contradictory, and chaotic movements, much like what truly occurs in our cities, in the multitude of people passing through, living, or simply moving, generating meetings and blends of the private and public realm at every moment.

On a technical level, even though in oil painting he has largely swapped brushes for a palette knife, Kllogjeri doesn’t rely on excessive use of impasto, but rather on the portrayal of multiple individual elements in an abstract manner. Literally, the viewer assumes a detail that isn’t there or is formulated entirely abstractly, as due to the adept depiction of movement, the mind adds elements to the perception of the frame that aren’t present.

In watercolors, notable in the context of modern Greek art, is the artist’s exploration of various papers and techniques, as well as the use of water-soluble pigments and their mixing through less common methods in the Greek art scene. Morphologically, his watercolor works appear more abstract, while the urban-natural landscape dichotomy is exploited in certain paintings, likely to highlight the expansion of the urban landscape or its integration into nature.

– Paris Kapralos,
Art Curator