Ion’s ‘Work on Portraits’ 2006

Ion’s ‘Work on Portraits’ is an intimate portrayal of subjects from contemporary mainstream Athenian society. Photographic portraiture is not as simple as it may seem. Discourse in photographic portraiture
is extremely problematic especially when it is fabricated and digitally enhanced. But Ion overcomes these difficulties easily and produces a body of work that displays passion, surprise, energy, spontaneity,
something experimental and visionary.

The artist’s subjects include different genders, diverse cultures and ages to combine with natural Greek surroundings. His representation of types reveals a broad range of personality characteristics and his appraisal of them are neither shallow nor stereotypic. The links between the people, places and elements pictured are digitally constructed or enhanced. Technology does not determine his photography per se
but encompasses multiple concepts and articulates images and concerns associated with time/space, nature/cultural, subject/object relations, aesthetics, representation, memory and identity. Ion relates his
work to painting vis-à-vis composition, saturated colour, lighting and especially approach. Ion uses,
however, an active dialogic approach. The artist also engages in several critical discourses which include:
Mikhail Bakhtin’s notions of the threshold and dialogue; Walter Benjaman’s aura; performance and art theory. This body of work is Ion’s first solo show and celebrates the meaning encapsulated by photography as performance—a performance of desire which is in the perpetual process of becoming. This show
identifies Ion as an artist whose potential is unlimited and will continue to grow/mature.

Pamela Browne, PhD, January 2006

The full multi page critique of Ms. Browne will be available at the gallery EOS, XEYDEN 38A st.,
Victoria sq., Athens, during the "Work on Portraits" exhibition 23 January - 11 February 2006.