WORKSHOP SALE - YORGOS NIKAS, European archipelagos

MAGNIN WEDRY, will have the pleasure to disperse on April 8, 2021, during a public auction, the studio of Yorgos NIKAS. An unpublished grouping of 40 years of creation, which appears as the vibrant testimony of a Parisian artist living in the 1980s.

Yorgos NIKAS was born in Greece. Painter but also plastic artist, many exhibitions mark out his career: Athens, Paris, but also London, capital in which he stays regularly. Inspired by Pop Art, especially in the reflection around Polaroids and painting on photo prints, Nikas embodies the art of the 1980s. A true way of life, composed of rock n' roll, travel, parties and dinners with friends in a festive Paris.

The artist frequents the media environment of the capital with his companion Jean-Pascal Billaud, then a great reporter and in 1984, editor-in-chief of City Magazine International, a magazine that has become a reference, at the crossroads between the art magazine and the trendy tabloid. Distributed in all the major capitals of the world, Yorgos Nikas designed the logo.

In the 1990s, Yorgos Nikas was represented by the Charles Sablon gallery, the public discovered his works at the FIAC in 1993 and he took part in larger projects, such as the projection of his works on the Carioca aqueduct in Rio de Janeiro in 1996. In 2002, the Rough Version series, his last work almost completed at the time of his death, was a series of portraits taken from enhanced Polaroids and whose subjects were friends, personalities or anonymous people he met on the street. The constant? The subjects all wear the same white Calvin Klein shirt from the 1980s, symbolizing the link between the world and the artist.

Plural artist, each medium, from the most tribal to the most noble, becomes a support of creation. Piece of torn cardboard, cotton or jute canvas, aluminum, Polaroids or paper are thus exploited. Most often, his creative process followed countless steps. He photographed, then drew or painted on the print before being re-photographed again and again, integrating non-finiteness into his work. Secret, as wild as he was deep, Yorgos could sit in his studio for hours looking at his work, not caring if it was exhibited or not.

Three predominant motifs emerge from his compositions: an abstract form, like a 'V' or a chevron, springs up in a way that one imagines to be quasi-automatic, even obsessive. One conceives the gesture, and yet NIKAS orders it on the space of the canvas in line or in quincunx.

On the other side, more concrete forms, those of islands which emerge in filigree in almost monochrome compositions. The artist draws from the vision of the country of his childhood: Greece. A fragmented and insular territory, an invitation to travel to a land lulled by tales and myths, an idea dear to Baudelaire, for whom "Genius is childhood found at will. His figurative works are filled with references to Greek mythology, while the artist was fascinated by Byzantine icons.

Yorgos Nikas also likes to represent flowers, especially peonies on large formats, with a whole reflection around their ephemeral beauty.

EXHIBITION :

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 FROM 10:00 AM TO 6:00 PM

FRIDAY APRIL 8 FROM 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

VERNISSAGE :

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 from 6:30 pm