The exhibition “Yannis Moralis. Figures”, organised jointly by the Victoria Karelias Collection of Traditional Greek Costumes and the Society for the Study, Research and Promotion of modern-Greek Art / Yannis Moralis Studio, introduces visitors to the eminent Greek artist with a focus on his special interest in depicting the human figure and in a visual counterpoint and dialogue with the exhibits of the Collection.

Yannis Moralis was a multifaceted artist -painter, sculptor, printmaker, stage designerwho had a decisive influence on Greece’s post-war art scene and left his indelible mark on the country’s artistic developments. Paintings with oil on canvas, acrylic, tempera, prints, drawings and studies, sculptures and ceramic works depicting people emerge from the artist’s personal experience to put together
the mosaic of a lifetime’s research on the human figure.

Moralis cultivates an anthropocentric art. Painted in frontal or side view and rendered in serene, simple ways, at once familiar and distant, his faces train their penetrating gaze on us. The inwardness of his figures and an introspective mood characterise the portraits throughout
a creative course during which he constantly experimented with forms, materials and techniques.

The faceless local costumes from the permanent exhibition of the Victoria Karelias Collection, with their special and multilevel cultural charge, act as a social background and converse with the artist’s portraits in a conceptual dialogue between traditional and contemporary art, anonymous folk creations and signed artworks, functional handicraft and visual work; a dialogue that generates interesting aesthetic experiences and poses questions about necessities, socioeconomic context and their connotations.