Exhibition Dia-Chronos - Analects of painted poetry | Manthos Gaitis

Just as poetry generates thousands of images in our minds, so painting transforms the image into poetic language.

With these thoughts and fascinated by the poetry of Lorka and Nerouda, I came during the pandemic period to a creative dialogue between poetry and painting, particularly influenced by Lorka's relationship with nature and its elements such as air, water, fire and earth.

Thus I created abstract images with strong chromatic and tonal gradations emphasizing alternating harmonies and counterpoint.

Manthos Gaitis was born in Athens in 1955, originally from Vergados, Tinos. He studied graphic design at A.T.O. Doxiadis and worked for about 10 years in advertising.

At the same time he studied painting from 1981 to 1986 at the Athens School of Fine Arts in the workshops of Kessanlis, Moralis and Mytaras. He held his first solo exhibition in Tinos in 1988, at the "Magazi" space of Bampi Regepopoulos and taught Visual Arts in the schools of the island from 1987 to 1994.

In the first years his works were anthropomorphic with a realistic character, while later he was involved in landscape painting with impressionistic influences.

His 2000 paintings are inspired by the poetry of T.S. Eliot and follow new paths with allegorical elements and symbolism.
In 2009 fascinated by Italo Calvino's work "Invisible Cities" he gave his own iconographic interpretation of the origin of the city and the village.
Since 2015 he has been studying the poetry of F.G. Lorka and P. Nerouda, creating works that emerge from their poetic discourse.

Nikolaou Gyzi 5, Chora Tinos Island Greece

Νικολαου Γύζη 5, Χώρα Τήνος, Κυκλάδες