Urban windows
| What is the connection between love for architecture and ribbons? Between Brutalism and Bauhaus and cords? Can Athenian buildings fit into a frame? Only Lambro Elias Vouvousiras has the answers. He is the only one who can lead us to the top of a thread. And then he will let us fall into canvases that are tied with ribbons; brushes and paint have no place there.
Sometimes you cannot define art. Walls do not limit it. Only windows are meaningful. The kind of windows that are open and through them, one can see the view of the opposite world. What is hidden there? What stories are waiting to be told? Life is beautiful when the windows are open. Even when we have to stay home, we will always have them, so let's keep them open.
Lambros is inspired by all this. He feeds off the city's buildings and their lines, and whatever he swallows he puts it back on the canvas with ribbons and cords. When we are in his artwork, we do not walk on the familiar concrete city roads but on cotton sidewalks, in red houses and purple rooms. We live behind yellow doors and fall in love under blue ceilings. We become acrobats who walk on linear tightropes.
And therefore, Lambros is not just an artist. He is something more. To put it simply and honorably, he is a builder. He builds cities and stories. He creates creatures like Medusa that have no snakes in their hair, but are knitted, full of fantasy and colors. With his art, he talks about something very old that looks modern, or about something very modern that looks old. Just like us who carry memories: contemporary but with so many ropes that tie us to the windows of the past. Are we going to keep them open? |
Elephant Design
photos and video by: Eleftheria Katsianou
Elephant design,
Tatoiou 134, 14671, Nea Erithrea
May 11 - June 7, 2021
ALL DAY
(IT IS A WINDOW EXHIBITION)
scan the QR CODE on the window display
Elias
Vouvousiras
2021, Lambros Vouvousiras, Athens
larry.boyboy
https://elephantdesign.gr/en/projects/architecture/133-exarcheia-ii-59
Lambros Elias Vouvousiras was born in Montreal, Canada. When he was 6 years old, he moved with his family to Karditsa where he finished high school. Lambros experimented with paints and brushes at a very young age and wanted to become a painter. At the age of 18 he decided that he wanted to move and study abroad. He chose England where he completed his undergraduate studies in Business Economics as well as his postgraduate studies in Financial Decision Management.
Ultimately, he became a hairdresser and through that, he came in touch with his artistic side again. He stayed in London for 12 years and during that time he attended many life drawing classes and seminars, thus managing to practice the art of his childhood dreams. For the last 5 years he has been working mainly on construction projects, while he is self-taught in the technique he uses.
His original works have decorated several houses and hotels. His first exhibition took place in 2020 at the Elephant and Castle hair salon in Athens, where the audience embraced Lambros and his first step as well as his artworks. In the same year, he started working on the Urban Windows project. He created that series by observing the city windows which - due to the quarantine - were his only view.
His work is innovative and introduces something fresh to the art world, but by using an old technique. He is inspired by architecture, by the city he lives in, Athens, and he is constantly looking for new forms to express himself.
-skarpelo by Irini Daskalopoulou-
Irini Daskalopoulou is the creator of SKARPELO.
Over the last years, she has been making lighting objects.
At first, she was inspired by Seawood and experimented with various materials. This led her to knit the hats of the lighting objects thus giving them another look. Each lamp is hand-knitted with love while the creator uses 100% mercerized cotton yarn or mixed wool.
Irini creates these lamps to awaken feelings. They can be placed on the floor next to a favorite armchair, on grandmother’s old buffet, on a library shelf. They are custom-made, with a wide variety of options for the frames (dimensions, color), the threads (109 colors), cables, and suspensions.