Seascape, 1991

After studying painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts, lithography at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and mosaic and fresco with Severini, Paniaras settled in the French capital, while in the intervals he lived for long periods in the United States and Persia. In Paris, he came into contact with the pioneers of non-representational art, who influenced him profoundly. A source of inspiration for him was what he had experienced and felt in his birthplace on the shores of the Gulf of Corinth. The sea, the open horizon, and the whole of nature round about, as well as the relics of a great civilisation, ruins or museum exhibits whose origins are lost in the depths of time, constantly pass through his work. He transfers on to the canvas through a rhythmical alternation of the basic colours - red and blue, combined with white and black and sometimes gold or silver - full of vibrancy and tension while his gaze has taken into its embrace and his memory has preserved: the purple dawn on the Corinthian Gulf, the silver nights on the mountains of Sicyon, experiences free of any commentary, attempts at the 'decoding of a constant vision', which is repeated before our eyes every day, and yet is different every time. Having completely conquered the painted surface, he then went on to remodellings, creating folds in the canvas itself, where now the game of light and shade renders the varied iridescences of the basic colours which he uses. And when he went on to three-dimensional creations, again the same principles and experiences, through a constant alternation with the symmetries, induce a feeling of inner harmony and unity.