A temporary exhibition of the Spanish painter Miguel Ángel Vázguez Vera entitled “Forms and dialogues. Ancient vase painting and contemporary creations of visual art” will open at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki on Monday, October 30 2017 at 7.00 p.m.
Miguel Vera is a young artist who has taken part in many group exhibitions and who recently had his first one man show in Granada called‟ LA HERENCIA CLÁSICA, ensayos visuales sobre el presente y el pasado de los vasos griegos”.
Ancient Greek art is the source of inspiration for his creations, with his interest focusing on the dialectic dynamics of Archaic and Classical vase painting in contemporary art; in red and black figure vase painting he finds an excellent link of the past with the present and the future.
Given the leading role played by ancient Greek tradition in the formation and evolution of European civilization, M. Vera makes good use in his work of Greek vase painting’s possibility to become modern man’s common symbolic language of communication through his connection with cultural heritage.
As stated in the Museum’s announcement: “The artist’s intention resulting in his artistic creation, for which he has successfully introduced modern methods of approaching the ancient object, is to demonstrate the timeless and multifunctional quality of art “.
The exhibition unfolds in three thematic sections: the first includes designs of images from 51 vases of the Archaic and Classical era from the AMT collection. To create them, the artist applied a method of digitalization, using repeated and successive photographic shots of each vase. Twenty ancient vases depicted in this way surround contemporary designs, giving the visitor the opportunity to see the original image and its interpretation by the artist simultaneously.
The next sections feature original paintings by M. Vera. In the second section there are folding books of drawings, which faithfully follow ancient painting prototypes and are accompanied by the artist’s comments. They are essentially the records of some of his thoughts and concerns as they emerged during the creation of the specific works.
In the third and final section, 61 contemporary works are exhibited in which the artist, recognizing the images on the vases as his source of inspiration at a first level, depicts these in detail and then incorporates them into fanciful modern compositions, some of which touch on sensitive social issues or just capture scenes from modern everyday life.
The exhibition will run till January 15, 2018.
Entrance is free.
