L’escamoteur (after Hieronymus Bosch) 1 (1982) by Christiana SoulouNational Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣT)
The artistic practice of Christiana Soulou is developed through the medium of drawing in a rich visual imagery. Through her work, she seeks to reveal an inward truth that lays beyond the natural reality in a quest of its divine nature.
In one of her earliest series of drawings, Christiana Soulou attempts a visual analysis of the work L’Escamoteur (c. 1475-1505) by Hieronymus Bosch.
In this work, Bosch depicts an enigmatic scene of a goblet in front of a compact crowd of onlookers.
As Soulou writes in the pictorial surface “Circles and balls, enclose the magical power that emerges the imagination and we must stand (enter) from there and then pass”.
L’escamoteur (after Hieronymus Bosch) 2 (1982) by Christiana SoulouNational Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣT)
Soulou isolates details of the work and subjects them to an analytical graphic and textual description.
By using the simplest means possible -pencil and aquarelle-, Soulou seeks to decrypt the enigmatic character of Bosch’s work and his “perfect shapes” that are able of deliberating our imagination.
L’escamoteur (after Hieronymus Bosch) 3 (1982) by Christiana SoulouNational Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣT)
Symbols of medieval spirituality – owl, dog, ball, the magician - are inscribed in a perceptive system comprising of circles, triangles and diagonal axes.
L’escamoteur (after Hieronymus Bosch) 4 (1982) by Christiana SoulouNational Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣT)
Soulou reimagines iconographical details as being a part of a ceaseless game of transformations.
This story was brought together by the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens.
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Story Author: Tina Pandi, curator EMΣT
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