With the Moon as Subject, 1970

After graduating from the Athens School of Fine Arts, where he was taught sculpture by Michalis Tombros, and where he enrolled when he was only 16, Dimitris Armakolas continued his studies at the École des Beaux Arts (1960 - 1962) in Paris, while at the same time studying in the museums of the French capital. A productive and fertile creative artist, he belonged to a post-War group of sculptors who devoted themselves to innovative experimentations and assisted in the shaping of the modern art scene in Greece. Armakolas did not confine himself to conventional styles and standardised subject-matter, as he ventured to penetrate a provocative world between expressionism and symbolism. In his work he has modelled multifarious and multi-faceted compositions, consisting of parts of figures and abstract shapes. His sculptures are possessed of powerful expressiveness and eroticism, as they seek to guide the imagination to 'poetic elation'. Since the 1970s, Armakolas's abstract tendencies have been balanced by realistic human figures which have entered his subject-matter. A primary pivot is the female body, usually truncated at the knees and positioned in poses of ecstasy. The relief nude bodies serve "as memories of broken statues" and invoke ancient Hellenistic sculpture, while the comparison of the smooth skins of the women with the rough, irregular surfaces of the background gives rise to an opposed relation of rhythms, resulting in a mixture of 'suurealistic expressionism'.