ARTISTDimitris Kretsis
Kretsis is an important young artist who does not seek to imprison his viewer within ‘cerebral’ problematiques and rhetorical figures.
Dimitris Kretsis is first and foremost an important designer and colourist, who has for years and with demonstrable success been practising the rendering of realist and multi-levelled iconographic compositions, employing chiefly the allegories of verisimilitude.
What is striking in his works – of small or, more usually, of larger dimensions-is the levels of assemblage of the cohesion of background and surface.
Kretsis is an important young artist who does not seek to imprison his viewer within ‘cerebral’ problematiques and rhetorical figures.
Wall-paintings and works by Dimitris Kretsis can be found in private collections and in major hotels in Greece and abroad.
He choose the pieces in an attempt to evoke nostalgia that will impact on the audience and increase interest in art as well as marine life.
A distinguished artist acclaimed both within his home country (Greece) as well as on an international level, Dimitris possesses impressive abilities in iconography, realistic rendering of vignettes, and portraitures.
Dimitris has won honours in art exhibitions throughout Greece and his wall paintings and other art works are found in private collections and major hotels at home and abroad.
Biography
Dimitris Kretsis was born in Agrinio in 1972. He studied in Athens, initially,in 1990,in the Graphic Art Department of the Athens Technological Educational Foundation (TEI).
He continued his studies in 1996 at the Athens School of Fine Arts (A.S.F.A.), with Rena Papaspyrou, Dimitris Sakellion, Dimitris Mytaras and Zacharias Arvanitis as his teachers.
In 2004,he attended courses in drawing, anatomy and fresco at the Facultad de Bellas Artes-Universitad de Madrid.
He has studied in depth a multitude of classical and modern artworks in the museums of Europe and New York.
In 2011,he achieved distinction in the competition on ‘Art interventions in the public urban space, with painting on the blind elevations of buildings in Athens’ held by the Athens School of Fine Arts and the Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Climate Change, and played an active part in the realisation of the works.
Kretsis is better known for his large-scale public art compositions which have been choosen as a result of competitions and now adorn elevations at central points in Athens.
His activity as an artist also extends, naturally, to the interiors of important well-known buildings (such as, for a example,the Grand Bretagne Hotel) in Athens,as well other cities in Greece,where his work include wall-paintings,ceiling- paintings,and a variety of decorative art themes.
Kretsis possesses impressive abilities both in iconography,the realistic rendering of vignettes,and in portraiture.
Dimitris Kretsis is first and foremost an important designer and colourist, who has for years and with demonstrable success been practising the rendering of realist and multi-levelled iconographic compositions, employing chiefly the allegories of verisimilitude.
What is striking in his works – of small or, more usually, of larger dimensions – is the solidity of the structure and the transparency of the levels of assemblage of the cohesion of background and surface.
Space, in the artist’s works, relates to magnitudes and distance.
The artist recalls -”the seas”-within himself.
These are versions of allegories which concern voyages, passages, routes, and sailings in known and unknown sea, the forgotten and insistently recurring sense of it, which spreads from the playful games in its tempests and from the shores to the depths of its ocean.
First of all,as can be seen from his works,he wishes to attract any ‘reader’ of his painting,so that he,now fascinated,approaches of his own free will,participating in exploring the depths for what each of his multi-levelled ans simulatory supposed ‘images’ conceals.
Athena Schina
Critic and Historian of Art