Yiannis Maniatakos: Four Paintings | Sylvia Kouvali
Yiannis Maniatakos had a unique method for producing his works: symphonic landscapes of the sea beds that surrounded his home on the Greek island of Tinos. A keen diver, he painted them underwater. First, he prepped his canvases with a special water-repellent primer. Then, he went out to sea, weighted himself and his canvasses to the sea bed, and pressed his oil paints on with force.
There are four works of his currently on show at Sylvia Kouvali - the pitilessly floor-lit, wall-tiled, one room gallery that was formerly known as Rodeo. The show notes tell us that Maniatakos dove for three to five hours at a time, when painting. So the production process was intense and impressive, regardless of the quality of the end result.
Untitled (2007)
The enormous effort was worth it. The paintings are quite beautiful, dark and withholding from afar, shimmering and gleaming close up. They were all painted in different decades (Maniatakos died as an octogenarian in 2017).
Maniatakos’ unique perspective lends a strangeness to what we see. I don’t recall seeing any underwater landscapes before. And yet, how weirdly familiar it is to watch distant surface sunbeams brighten the sand. To see so many shades of blue blur into turquoise in the distance.
It’s clear the artist’s passion was the sea: his commitment to working in such difficult conditions tells us all we need to know on that. His achievement is that us viewers feel some of that passion for ourselves, thanks to seeing his works.
Yiannis Maniatakos: Four Paintings is on show at Sylvia Kouvali (London). 31 May - 28 September 2024