I must admit that I feel a little awkward having to write about such a prolific artist, whose work has drawn the attention of so many other art historians, whereas I only recently, and fortuitously, became acquainted with him and his art.

We never crossed paths, perhaps because I pursued more anarchic art forms.

What fascinated me most is that "microcosm", which the artist is bent on safeguarding with assiduousness and precision. Indeed his aim is to preserve it in all its time and chromatic changes. For exemple, "Aquatics in a Bowl" (mixed media on cardboard), which he is presenting for the first time, evince to this very trend of keeping, of preserving on paper and "inside him", certain vivid moments in all nuances of colour, under a different light, at different hours of the day, and subject to diverse psychic processes.

The same goes for "Dendrokoritsa" (literally "tree-girls"), figures of young women entagled in foliage. Here, he makes a note of the time he observes them, for instance: six in the morning, seven-forty, nine-twenty....Everywhere and always his own world as it is nature-bound and vibrated by the elements, nostalgia, trees and circular lines. Precision attached to galloping imagination....

In his objects, his figurines, as well as his sculptures, it is as if he wants to "see" his painting, his obsessions, three-dimensionally, and to this end he succeeds.

In the "bottle" series (glass and silver) he again restrains if not the spirit of Aladdin then the forms he carries inside him, those that enrich him while also haunting him. Something akin to musical tremolo, whihout mercy.

Again Harold Pinter's verses comes to mind:

Why have you left me?
Running among the columns,
thunder in my temples,
why did you follow me?

The significance of Golfinopoulos' oeuvre is that he lends his microcosm universal dimensions, in a way making it also ours.


Lena Kokkini

Art Historian
Member of the International A.I.C.A.