EN
With the exhibition Playground by painter Dimitris Tzamouranis, Galerie Monica Ruppert presents an artist who has, for years, stood out through an impressive fusion of classical image composition with contemporary themes.
Central to Tzamouranis’s artistic practice is a figurative painting style that consciously plays with recognition and disruption. His color-intense visual worlds reference well-known works of art history – such as Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Ferdinand Hodler’s The Night, depictions of the Pietà, or flower still lifes. Yet these references are far more than mere quotations. Tzamouranis radically breaks with the iconography of European art history by clearly marking the depicted figures – friends or acquaintances of the artist – as people of the 21st century. The protagonists wear streetwear, makeup, and modern hairstyles; through their clothing, posture, and body language, they are unmistakably anchored in the present.
Tzamouranis uses this sense of vividness and contemporaneity, combined with the art historical references, to draw our attention to themes such as transience, death, or the forces of nature – or, as he puts it: to stage a place of transformation, where the freedom of play and the seriousness of art can be narrated, explored, and redefined.
Thus, while Tzamouranis employs the language of the masters, he does so not merely out of respectful connection, but to initiate a dialogue that can be read not only aesthetically, but also politically and socially. The legacy of art history becomes a toolbox, whose painterly repertoire activates and extends our collective visual memory. His paintings go beyond the visual and invite us to reflect on identity and our societal self-understanding.
At a time when art is increasingly shifting toward the conceptual, his works represent a practice defined by technical precision, atmospheric density, and a raw realism that provokes deep contemplation.
Dr. Christine Karallus
