Panos Kokkinias

Xippas Paris

Born in 1965 in Athens, Greece, Panos Kokkinias lives and works in Athens.

In the artworks by Panos Kokkinias we see the familiar figures and spaces and the accessible outdoors which are retained as a realistic backdrop for the narrative. Inside, however, the eye of the camera acts as an observer of the invisible: it retrieves latent possibilities, as if they were past/future events inscribed in the spaces and the people.

Photographic technique exploited by Panos Kokkinias contributes to this distortion of reality, exactly because it reproduces it with precision: the obsessive attention to detail, the strong colours and the clear outlines are necessary prerequisites for the imaginary to show through. The distance between the photogapher and his subject, as well as the particular treatment given to light strengthen our belief that we are confronted with a projection of a mystical nature. Familiarity is transformed into a strange and unknown location: a place where imaginary stories could at any time become reality.

Panos Kokkinias’ photographs evoke the human condition in all its fragility and uncertainty. The allure of these images gives way to a visceral confusion that perturbs the spectator and raises questions regarding the existentialist conflict of mankind, without offering any answers. In Panos Kokkinias’ works, the landscapes act as metaphors for interior worlds.

His oeuvre was part of numerous institutional exhibitions: Neon Art Centre (Athens), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, National Museum of Contemporary Art – EMST (Athens), Centre d’art contemporain de Meymac (Meymac), Onassis Cultural Centre (Athens), Palazzo Reale (Milan), Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Brussels), National Museum of Singapore (Singapore), National Museum of contemporary art (Bucharest), Istanbul Museum of Modern Art (Istanbul), Maison Européenne de la photographie (Paris).

Public collections: Société Générale (Paris, France), National Museum of Contemporary Art – EMST (Athens, Greece), Costa Navarino (Messina, Greece), Fundacion Telefonica (Madrid, Spain), European Patent Office (Munich, Germany), Macedonia Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki, Greece), Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (Thessaloniki, Greece), Athenaeum Inter-Continental (Greece), Yale University Art Gallery (New Heaven, US), Musée de la Roche-sur-Yon (France), ADAC Collection (Munich, Germany).