Vasilis Zografos

In his first solo exhibition in North America, Greek artist Vasilis Zografos presents an engaging selection of paintings at Stowe’s Helen Day Art Center. The title is “Studio of Archeo-Virtual Spiritings,” but the works have nothing to do with this spooky time of year. Curated by Stephanie Bertrand, the paintings draw, literally, from the classic art traditions of Zografos’ homeland, but they “deliberately abandon the aura of the finished masterpiece in favour of ghostly studies of restored Antique statuettes and plaster replicas.” While the replication of images from museum catalogs speaks to today’s digitized visual space, the recreation of those images by hand simultaneously validates the persistent medium of painting. Zografos’ works “spirit” the past into the present.