Like most Greeks, I was raised in two visual traditions: a Western one, where novelty was at a premium; and an Orthodox tradition, which valued conformity above everything. To succeed as an artist in the non-Orthodox world, you had to come up with a new visual vocabulary. To be an Orthodox icon-maker, you had to learn a pictorial language handed down from artist to artist, unchanged, since the start of time.
The question for me, as for many Greeks, is how to reconcile these two things: to make icons which are modern, but which respect the traditions of iconography. Icons aren't just images of holiness. They are holy, sometimes even acheiropoieton – made by saints, untouched by human hand. As one historian puts it, “the icon is a hole in the dyke separating the visible world from the divine, and through this hole ooze precious drops from the great sea of God's mercy.” The search for a new iconography is not something to be undertaken lightly.
It struck me, on a retreat to Mount Athos a few years ago, that glass was the ideal medium for conducting this search. Icons have always been seen as windows between the human and divine worlds: glass is both transparent and capable of bearing an image, a revelation and a mystery. Abstraction – seeing reality in a non-realist way – is part of the iconic tradition. (Icon-makers have never gone in for perspective, or for naturalistic portraiture.) After a lot of thought, I have set to work on a series icons of mainly the Madonna and child which will, I hope, place Orthodox traditions in a modern context – see miracles in new technology, signs of God's genius in materials like fluorescent paint. The Virgin is both the Mother of God and a woman. She is eternal, but also mortal; unchanging, but capable of change.
George Papadopoulos, b 1969 Cyprus CV
Education
97-99 MA Ceramics & Glass RCA, London
95-97 Ceramics Diploma City Lit, London
88-93 BA (Hons) Interior Design Middlesex University, London
87-88 Art & Design Foundation Middlesex Polytechnic, London
Exhibitions
2006 ‘New Voices in Architectural Glass’ The Hub, Sleaford
‘Bombay Sapphire in Paris’ Galerie Claudine Papillon, Paris
2005 ‘Elais + Grove’ 50 Bank Street Canary Wharf, London
Bombay Sapphire’ Touring show- London, Liverpool & Brighton
2004 ‘ELEA’ The Gallery Cork Street London
‘Glass has many faces’ Tiffany Glass Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock, Germany
2002 Holmes Place Canary Riverside London
2000 Rosenthal New Routes - New Destinations Frankfurt & Milan
‘Apeiron’ The Hellenic centre in London
1999 'The Show' Henry Moore Gallery RCA London
'Ninety degrees' - Hockney Gallery RCA London
'Collaborations' V&A London
Commisions
2007 Private office – Soho London
2006 Saga cruiseliner – Spirit of Adventure
2005 Vima Dance Studio – San Francisco
2004 P&O liner ‘ Arcadia’
2003 Private residence in Kensington, London
2002 Berkeley Square House in London
Renka Furniture Store in Birmingham
2001 Private residence Radlett
Private residence in Kensington, London
Conco Property Developers in London
1999 Collingwood Jewellery store in Old Bond St. London
Private residence Orpington Kent
Pied a terre restaurant in London
Collections
2004 Derix Glass Studio Taunusstein, Germany
2001 British Airways Art Collection - Heathrow T4, London
Publications
2006 ‘Colours in Architecture’ Andrew Moor
2004 ‘Lamination’, George Papadopoulos, A&C Black, UK
2003 ‘Smocks v. Comme des Garçons’ – Modern Painters Winter
‘Transparent’, Elspeth Pridham, Mitchell Beazly
2002 Glass’, Chris Lefteri, Roto Vision |
