vantage point (2), 34x26cm, oil on canvas, 2025 web2

Angelos Merges

Off Season

 

Past

3  April – 3 May 2025

11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki

Venue

KALFAYAN GALLERIES | ATHENS

11 Haritos Street
106 75 Kolonaki
Athens 

Press Release

Text: Eleni Koukou (Art Historian – Curator)

The exhibition Off Season by Angelos Merges consists of large and medium scale paintings. This series of works is based on memories, from the artist’s personal experiences and the changing living conditions on the island of Chios, where he grew up. It focuses, as the title Off Season suggests, on seemingly indifferent and in-between situations. Off season is stereotypically the time when it feels as if nothing is happening on the islands which are associated with tourism. But in reality things are different. In winter, residents live an isolated life full of difficult and demanding tasks, preparing for the next touristic season, often coexisting with war and poverty stricken refugees. It is precisely this contradictory reality of the islands of the East Aegean that Angelos Merges’s anthropocentric painting has as its point of reference. He paints human figures, rendered abstractly, like shadows, in situations with an open narrative and ambiguous scenarios. Are they bathers enjoying the sea or refugees harassed by the same sea? Are they having fun or are they threatened?

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Artists

Angelos Merges

Angelos Merges was born in 1989 on the island of Chios. He graduated in 2020 from the Athens School of Fine Arts and completed his postgraduate studies in 2023 at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurich. He lives and works between Zurich and Athens. 

 

 

Installation Views

vessels, 150x200cm, oil on canvas, 2024 web
landlocked, 150x200cm, oil on canvas, 2024 web
flowing sands, 100×150, oil on canvas, 2025 web