The dream world of Nikos Angelidis is presented at the Skoufas Gallery, defining a new starting point for the artist. While his subject matter remains familiar and recognizable, viewing his work, drawing in symbolic masterful designs, results in more freedom. Nikos Angelides, with solid maturity, directs and expands, invents and expands the view of the imagination as a view of the subconscious.

The psychoanalytic dimension of his painting, sometimes characterized as a landscape of magical realism, seems here to be absolute omnipotent. Nikos Angelides in this public exhibition with the weight of a solo exhibition – after seven years – elevates the unconscious to the top position and at the same time releases experiences, associations, projections, repressed ones, dreams, nightmares, fantasies. All the echoes of growing up are heard in the background.

As exhibition curator Elizaveta Plessa writes, “There is an inherent and unexpected contrast to the prudence that shaped them in the work of Nikos Angelidis.” And indeed. Through method, geometric sequence, color organization and obsessive dedication, Nikos Angelides creates the imagination. In his work, the imagination is a land of freedom in a playful way and, despite appearances, with a dark tinge.

The hallucinatory mysteries of Nikos Angelidis reach the viewer like flashes of hallucinatory spectacles through secret doors and keyholes, like a descent into the caves of broken memory, like an immersion in Alice’s Wonderland. As an illustrator, troubadour, storyteller and generator of parallel galaxies, Nikos Angelides invites us into the world of beauty. Not only his paintings are highly aesthetic, but also his three-dimensional constructions, handmade masterpieces that could become exhibits in the best toy museums.

Of course, everything that makes up this single but separate world is not only strong symbolism, automatic associations and asthmatic steps in the land of childhood, but also the art of painting itself. Nikos Angelides owns what he does with confidence and belief in himself. And for this reason, in an age of redemptive purges and the desire for new conquests, he shows that he is ready to demarcate the conquered world, his own. His exhibition is like a portal to what contains us, to what alienates us, to what reflects us in the mirror of time.

Nikos Angelides, Painting. Exhibition and catalog curator: Elizaveta Plessa. Skuf Art Gallery, Skuf 4, Kolonaki. Duration until June 3rd.