"Forever Now"

Teloglion Foundation, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki 2020

The non-linearity of time has been known and taught by various spiritual traditions for centuries. In science, it was Albert Einstein who found a way to make peace with time and proclaim that time's true nature is non-linear, and that past and future are mere illusions. That only the present moment exists. That was a truly special moment when spirituality and advanced science converged!
We have developed a very dystopian relationship with Time which is a result of our physical limitations, being bound and gagged by our 5 senses, but also and mainly because of society's push towards focusing on anything else but the present moment.

An expanded version of the artwork "TIME (Somewhere between God and Naught)" covers the majority of the exhibition's walls and acts as a navigation map for the viewers as well as the foundation on which the rest of the works rest upon. The "TIME (Somewhere between God and Naught)" artwork is an attempt to understand and visually express the fluid and holistic nature of not only time but also of the creative energy that is present in all living things. It is a statement that promotes an existence which operates beyond man-made boundaries and limitations. In the "TIME" piece the symbolic distance between the low versus the expanded consciousness is not only emphasized via the illuminating process of the work from darkness to light, but also expanded in size to suggest the physical length of the temporal space between those two circumstances. The actual space the work occupies is therefore indicative of the symbolic representation of the distance in stages one needs to reach the truth, while the time required for the absorption of the work, reflects the temporal element of the process.

The exhibited works on canvas are based on a series of ephemeral installations, made out of various sized and shaped mirrors. In many mythological and spiritual traditions, as in the story of Narcissus that drowned in his own reflection, the mirror symbolizes the falling of the soul from the divine to the material, from higher consciousness to lower being. Once constructed, the highly reflective composition is photographed using the artist's iPhone, our contemporary mirror and the epitome of our vanity. The picture is blown-up and printed out, more mirrors are added and the new installation is re-photographed. The process of printing and photographing continues until the reflective qualities of the mirror are exhausted. By effacing the mirrors, the Ego gets eliminated, creating room for the spirit to move to a higher level of consciousness.
That idea of the material world we live in, being an illusion, a world of shadows (to reference Plato's cave allegory) is known in mysticism for centuries.
Science has only recently proven that the universe is an ocean of energy in constant movement; parts of that energy enters our bodies and gets filtered through our (limiting) 5 senses, creating what we call the "material reality". What our senses perceive as "reality" is not the actual universe but its projection onto this distorted euclidean "mirror" which our senses falsy experience as "reality" (known as Minkowski space in physics).

The "Forever Now" exhibition has been arranged according to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey diagram. The Hero's journey is a diagram created by Literature Professor (and expert on comparative mythology and comparative religion) Joseph Campbell, and it's based on the observation that a common pattern exists beneath the narrative elements of most great myths, regardless of their origin or time of creation. The placement of the artworks in the exhibition correspond to the key points of the diagram, reinforcing in that way the cathartic-journey character of the project and symbolically transforming the visitor from merely a viewer into the main protagonist of this passage from the physical to the metaphysical.