Some places, which are unknown to the word, acquire substance when their intrinsic value is recognized. One such place is Lykoporia, a seaside village of Peloponnesus, right on the waves of the Corinthian Gulf. For the artist Andreas Golfinopoulos Lykoporia is the special birthplace, which is privileged to be the starting-point in every of his artistic endeavors.

Morphologically Lykoporia is occupied by a field of citrus trees, which spreads parallel to the sea, and has in its background hills that are peculiarly covered by all-white earth and planted with bushy pines - elements that compose a rare chromatic contrast. By obsessively observing nature in lykoporia, Golfinopoulos poetically personalizes the trees, the clouds and the wind. Colorful patterns clearly imprint in the painter's subconscious his art's designs, which have affinities to the qualities of sculpture. Being taught by natural idiosyncrasies of Lykoporia, Golfinopoulos escaped the categorization of his art in mainstream movements and developed a genuinely independent art that expresses gentleness.

In the main Golfinopoulos' work is peopled by imaginary women; Tree Girls. The facese, which are transposed from the nature of his hometown Lykoporia, they are figures that feature in the artist's life -friends that are good and beloved with the capacity to deliver male solitude. The Tree Girls - despite concerning imaginative portraits - explore the influences of light on the subject at different times of the day, from dusk till dawn. The Hatted Trees deal with anthropomorphic plants as accessed by fashion. The Pine Forms present the dialog between a tree couple and a third party. The Portraits of the Sky spring from a recent painting that for the first time brings together a female face with a bird amidst utopia. The works that ensued present the face and the bird to externalize their internal relationship with the surrounding environment. Excellent patterns - the woman's hair, the bird's beak and the track inscribed by the airplane in the sky - enter the painting or come out into the space suggestive of the exit from reality and the entry into fantasy.

The art of Golfinopoulos is communicated to whoever is predisposed to let his sensations open up in a totally new dimension, organized whit fine art in all its guises. The Aquatics In A Jar is a series of paintings in which the content of a transparent vessels is placed consecutively in backgrounds of different basic colors. From the basis of his painting Golfinopoulos creates various useful objects - candelsticks; lamps; platters; and doorknobs - that merge the visual arts with industrial design, thus endowing everyday life with a high aesthetic. Their subjects emerge initially in painting and then lend their qualities to functional objects with an aim to beautify everyday living. The Bottles, as unique pieces,are adorned with silvery tree and cloud forms, and birds from Golfinopoulos' idiosyncratic visual vocabulary - each one applied harmoniously to the varying shapes of the vessels.

The art of Golfinopoulos is a self-made and indigenous expression, which develops peacefully in the artist's studio mainly in Lykoporia, but also in Agia Paraskevi. In spite however of their proud independence, in the viewer's eyes and the artist's subconscious the aforementioned works are well founded on Greek tradition - basically on Byzantine austerity; then on Parthenis' lyricism; next on the chromatic spectrum of Ghika; and finally on Moralis' composition. These four pillars owe their stature in the art of Golfinopoulos thanks to the stimuli that the artist's 'lykoporia' inspires.



Megakles Rogakos
Art Curator of The American College of Greece
Athens, February 2008