Sculpture

In his latest solo art exhibition in Batagianni Gallery, Fotis Raftopoulos presents the course of his new researching in sculpture.

Through a deep observation of the world around him, Raftopoulos creates sculptures that disrupt the links that traditionally relate sculpture to commemoration. Instead, his creations are in the search of a new place in the social and aesthetic status quo.

His new project involves organic sculptural forms, which develop from within to reveal their internal structure and movement. They are crafted with an almost erotic luster and a harmonic integrity, echoing the perfection of their external appearance. Intricate yet robust and solid, Raftopoulos' biomorphic sculptures stand between stillness and movement; they are charged with the intensity of a single frozen moment as well as of the eternal flowing of time.

Raftopoulos' creative process begins with a three-dimensional reconstruction of his "drawings" in the "immaterial" environment of the computer. This is followed by the actual construction of the sculpture with an emphasis on the particularities of the materials selected. This stage is in fact a process of reconstitution of the sculpture, always with the help of the accidental, through which the "non-handcraftedness" of the digital object is removed.

The materiality of Raftopoulos' works is both stressed and denied by the very use of color. The color, together with the reflections and the gaps, highlight the structure of the sculptures and basically integrate them into space. At the same time, color transforms the materials, so that weight and mass acquire a layer of ambiguity that helps the viewer to become acquainted with the works. In this way, it becomes the best conductor for the transmission of the vital energy that Raftopoulos' sculptures radiate.