Michael Rapanakis works with stone, wood, glass, metal and found objects
A lot of his stone carving starts from a matrix-the shape of a spiral sawn into the stone-which is allowed to mutate to either a recognizable form, often a dancer, or to an abstract
piece retrospectively titled. Unpredictability is also the essence of his assembled objects where the artist acts only as an agent in the bonding of disparate objects. A kind of controllable uncontrollability marks his enameling, the kilns driven to their limits produce volcanic eruptions of
colour and form. His background in mathematics and research on the fringes of chaos theory, of potentially unstable compositions surfaces in the use of mosaics as a unifying overlay of incompatible fragmented forms reflecting fragmented mathematical spaces.
The importance of handwriting in his art and his interest in ancient scripts has led him to weave his mathematical research into J.Derrida's deconstruction of Plato's
condemnation or at least ambivalent attitude towards writing as a dangerous supplement to the living voice. Furthermore he often finds the semi-mathematical metaphors of Deleuse and Guattari as well as Michel Serres as akin to his own intuitions, which can inform his practice.
The other side of his mathematical work, biro doodling during the endless hours of lectures and study is intimately related to his stone work in that biro marks cannot be erased and no
cut of the chisel can be effaced it has to be carved deeper similarly to the cuts of the jeweler’s blade. As a result each change leads to increased texture, complexity and an unpredictable evolution of work. Similarly to the successive layering determined by chance occurences in
the enameling process. The biro drawings themselves are recycled as models for figurative mosaics and enamel paintings.
His current projects are the use of his idiosyncratic calligraphy as a springboard for the development of abstract two dimensional forms and the use of his miniature stone statues, products of accidental breakages, as maquettes to be further interpreted or developed. Both these projects and
the recycling of his biro-drawings point to a ring of self-reference surrounding his work, breached in some of his paintings (enamel or paintings on paper) which are copies of encyclopedic prints or parodies of old masters
The encyclopedic prints come from a huge collection of coloured or monochrome pictures stapled into over seventy scrap books created over a period of twenty five years. Between every two
pages of assembled pictures there is a page of calligrahic recording of dreams. A retrospective process follows where connections between the found visual imagery and the dreams are played out and recorded. His calligraphy, that started and developed in trying to record his dreams pretending or
aspiring to be half magical invocation half hypnotic, is mummified within the stapled pictures and the dreams are finally laid to rest. However sporadically in a rhizomatic fashion they resurface transmuted into writing. Books of dreams, artwork and artist were also entombed for 23 years in a
kind of a book, a vast installation (vast not in the geometric sense but in the combinatorial of the mutual interactiveness of hundreds of pieces within and on the collaged walls) of a decorated temple-studio-residense that acted as a haven and a catalyst for the creation of his
art.
A lot of his stone carving starts from a matrix-the shape of a spiral sawn into the stone-which is allowed to mutate to either a recognizable form, often a dancer, or to an abstract
piece retrospectively titled. Unpredictability is also the essence of his assembled objects where the artist acts only as an agent in the bonding of disparate objects. A kind of controllable uncontrollability marks his enameling, the kilns driven to their limits produce volcanic eruptions of
colour and form. His background in mathematics and research on the fringes of chaos theory, of potentially unstable compositions surfaces in the use of mosaics as a unifying overlay of incompatible fragmented forms reflecting fragmented mathematical spaces.
The importance of handwriting in his art and his interest in ancient scripts has led him to weave his mathematical research into J.Derrida's deconstruction of Plato's
condemnation or at least ambivalent attitude towards writing as a dangerous supplement to the living voice. Furthermore he often finds the semi-mathematical metaphors of Deleuse and Guattari as well as Michel Serres as akin to his own intuitions, which can inform his practice.
The other side of his mathematical work, biro doodling during the endless hours of lectures and study is intimately related to his stone work in that biro marks cannot be erased and no
cut of the chisel can be effaced it has to be carved deeper similarly to the cuts of the jeweler’s blade. As a result each change leads to increased texture, complexity and an unpredictable evolution of work. Similarly to the successive layering determined by chance occurences in
the enameling process. The biro drawings themselves are recycled as models for figurative mosaics and enamel paintings.
The encyclopedic prints come from a huge collection of coloured or monochrome pictures stapled into over seventy scrap books created over a period of twenty five years. Between every two
pages of assembled pictures there is a page of calligrahic recording of dreams. A retrospective process follows where connections between the found visual imagery and the dreams are played out and recorded. His calligraphy, that started and developed in trying to record his dreams pretending or
aspiring to be half magical invocation half hypnotic, is mummified within the stapled pictures and the dreams are finally laid to rest. However sporadically in a rhizomatic fashion they resurface transmuted into writing. Books of dreams, artwork and artist were also entombed for 23 years in a
kind of a book, a vast installation (vast not in the geometric sense but in the combinatorial of the mutual interactiveness of hundreds of pieces within and on the collaged walls) of a decorated temple-studio-residense that acted as a haven and a catalyst for the creation of his
art.