“Every time I see paintings of L.K., I grasp something new. Lately I find that she has a tendency for selectiveness. Not that a kind of minimalism or of “poor Art” (Arte Povera) is present, rather an outcome of a different visual approach. Something like an outlet of a mature sense, portrayed with a plain, comprehensive language, participating in the motive that every work of art provokes, in efforts that aid art lovers that have the tendency to seek through artist’s works ways of expression in their personal paintings. From L.K.’s side, combined with her temperament, perhaps this is a reasonable requirement that stems from her overall contribution in visual literacy for young students as prospective creatives and teachers. Her subjects are sharply selected to play their part within the canvas dimensions. What could be formerly read on her work is the subtle touch of the brush on the canvas. An impression maintained until the end of the process, defining through colour formations motifs that What could be primarily read in her work is the subtle touch of the brush on the canvas. An impression maintained until the end of the process, defining motifs through colour formations that form the basis of composition in artistic expression in a diffused psychological climate free from chatty narrative elements: quaintness, elegance and other traits that burden and disorient from the original intentions. The subject. in a fortunate way, is defined by the positioning of discrete contrast in colour or as we usually say in economy of expressive means. I.e. a spread black by a luminous greenish spot defines itself as the nightly theme without meaning that the back colour always refers to nightly themes. The intention is clearly creative – expressive (think and act not see and act). Or, i.e. the red painted house follows the same path, revealing the beauty of red, as is happening on some of her other works. We must accept that as much as the colour placement is predetermined, the sense of the painter is corrected in the process, the intensity and the shape of the media so that the work is plastically justified. Here I would say that the lights and shadows, rendered in a cinematic way, submit us in feelings of a hidden world or some event happening through a house window. I believe that every art loving observer, alone, by reading the work will discover the artist’s field of thought. Who, by extroverting her internal world within the artwork, identifies in such a way with him so she can say without hiding the truth: ‘I feel justified that the challenge in art is not only the momentary, transient success, but the joy of life'”.
Stamatis Metaxas, Artist Painter, Emeritus Professor at the Athens School of Fine Art
“L.K’s. paintings offer us, in a very sensitive and poetical manner, various perceptions of the daily realities lived by the human being in the city, alone or near the others. Τhe image is a shut, a stiff catch from a movie. You can smell, breath, touch, you are immersed in the picture. She deals with the positive face of the world. Her paintings trust and love our world, the human being. She wonders, explores the cityscapes through her characters. Young and old citizens, men and women, are depicted in a common context from their journey city diary. Their face and body are alive and in a permanent dialogue with themselves, with the others, with the nature. L.K.’s art work reveals with grace the diaphanous and mysterious moments of our passing life”.
Marilena Preda Sânc, (PhD) Professor, National University of Arts, Bucharest, Romania
“I feel so participating, since I came in touch with her painting, in her aesthetic searches, the agonies, the questionings or disputes , in the passion for the color and the expression that dominates her, in the atmosphere of “humanity and affection for the human creatures that stamp her work”-as Antonis Samarakis correctly noted in 1983. The excitement , also, -contagious- that obviously connects the painter with her subjects as well as with the material of her paintings, adds to the difficulty of a sober, “from a distance”, confrontation. Although, perhaps it may be in the very nature of this painting to wrap the viewer like a summer night, in an almost mystic space. More over, L.’s painting is not one. Her art is like the human himself, multiple, complex, enigmatic. She is not stopping in a peculiar –achieved– idiom, a manner, a juiceless style. Her creative imagination, if takes always as reason and base the “objective” reality –humans, homes, cafes, trees, squares and if tries not to move away from the “descriptive” reconstructive of the everyday life side of the plastic practice, returning again and again to the initial sketch to enrich with more “meaning” and details her object. She hardly resists to the spontaneous, violent tendency of deliverance from conventions and rules of aesthetic or ideological character, in order to express also, mainly, her inner, in continuous evolution, personal nature. The rhythms and beats, the multiform musics that reside inside her and are conveyed to the subjects of any kind. Basically of expressionistic character, her painting finds I think its best expression in the more impulsive, the more abstract –or rather “comprehensive” of her forms. When the colors are spread with transparency and mobility of aquarelle on the surface of the painting or again with big, wide, melodic strokes of the brush indicating rather than sketching; molding and showing off the forms; building in an unorthodox but wise way the conjectural space; lighting from inside figures and landscapes and getting very deeply into the existential tragic aspect of her models –and their world. Her own world; because the search for a peculiar expressive language, of new compositions and representations is nothing more than the manifestation, the liberation of accumulated psychic impulses and emotional experiences; the work ejects to the surface of the painting a whole, brilliant or obscure universe of sensations and fantasies – dreams, reminiscences, impressions, adventures, even touches – of a person that lives and participates in a collective, social process, struggling with its own way against the silence. With painting fury and passion”.
Vassia Karkayanni-Karabelia, Art Critic, November 2007.
“Τhe painting compositions of L. K. speak to us as live as possible, excite our psychism and imagination. Compositions taken out of the soul and of the rich in sensitivity experiences of her and created with genuine taste, talent but also with passion. Landscapes, scenes in interior spaces, simple “human” moments and situations charge us through her vibrating paint – brush, the rhythm of the sketching trace, the pulsation of the color. Decent, inexhaustibly charismatic, emotive to the infinity, her paintings excite us, educate us visually but also psychically. There is a liveliness, a “dedication”, an aesthetic but also psychological approach that is exploited in the extreme through the color and the composition ability of the worthy creator. Mainly however we see and feel a sincere dedication, a genuine and absolutely personal work”.
Dora Eliopoulou-Rogan, Art Critic, November 2007.
“The truth and the originality, which are of the most important elements of a work of Art, are present in her works… She describes the substance of the objects without unnecessary ornaments, with simplicity, sensitivity, knowledge and also strength. Her works are appearing plain and unadorned . Their composition-structure is strong and the combinations of her colors make us to dream. In the thematology and the content of her works are included the relation of life and death… the solitude and also the human relations”.
Theodoros Papayannis, Sculptor, Professor of the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKT), June 2004.
“Τhe works of L.K. are works “of museum” and not “of gallery”. The reason is that they are decent works, with a special character and optic prism (nocturnal), with a philosophical subject: The relation of life and death. In addition, they are also works of museum because of their excellent technique, continuing in modern language the classic mastery. The artistic vision of L.K. is a profound thought of the world”.
Souzana Fantanariu, Visual Artist, Professor of Gravure of the University West, Timisoara, Romania, Αugust 2002.
“Her work is characterized by the expressionistic use of color and the scene-painting theatrical space. In her last works the space becomes more problematic, with contrasts of lighted and dark surfaces, with colors that submit a loaded emotional atmosphere”.
Yannis Bolis, Dictionary of Greek Artists, Melissa, 1998, Vol.2 p.67-68.
“K. captured the deeper goal of the painting creation. Found the difficult, the hidden entrance to the sanctuary grove of art. So she knows that the highest and last reason of the plastic art is the continuing investigation of the incalculable dimensions of the human soul. Of our accumulated emotional.load with the sleeping memories which are deposited in layers from the faraway years of human prehistory. And from this deep knowledge is the painting of K. originating. Investigates, tries hard to open accesses to the emotional interpretation of human existence… Theme-writing-style of her painting converge to give form, sometimes the extended conjectural space (paintings of large dimensions), sometimes the chromatic melodiousness (multi colored composition) and sometimes the intellectual cubistic structure of objects (isolated houses). These isolated buildings, placed in a silent, in a semi-lit space, are like some historical short stories. They give the impression that they shed tears for what passes and disappears. We stop at her recent works. The representations, houses, humans, compositions, placed in a gloom, covered with a black cloud, cause deep tracings in our souls. The pictured are existing. Their placement, the surrounding chromatic atmosphere, transubstantiated, reshaped in their transcended sense. Does K. express conjecturally the contemporary collective soul? This murky deadlock of the contemporary world, which does not hear bells from some Jerusalems, nor it sees vessels to raise sails for first sighted ports”.
Νikos Αlexiou, «Rizospastis», 21/11/1992.
“Pictures that emerge from the darkness, sometimes intense and earthy and sometimes weird… Painted with priority on the atmospheric dimension of the work and the lighting that falls intense on one point like a searchlight … and the free stroke of the brush with the frequently unexpected chromatic combinations”.
Irini Florou, Lecturer in History of Art, Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKT), Sept. 1992.
“An atmosphere is spread, of the life of simple people. Dominant person the human… She wants the human to live in a human and traditional way, away from the noise, the clatter and the annoyance of the city… All the works speak in low voice, but eloquent. The human she leaves to revive the space and human relations she emphasizes and praises… No matter that our age is anti-poetic”.
Εfthymios Lazogas, Artist painter, «Εleftheria», Larissa , 15/2/1987
“Excellent, the work of Louisa Kakissi. It gave me deep joy and excitement. It is not only her art –sketch, color, composition– it is not only the atmosphere that bewitches you, it is the humanity and the affection for the human creatures that stamp her works”.
Αntonis Samarakis, Author, September 1983.
“Big strokes of genuine painting, of the painting which is captured by a blink of the eye and remains in the duration of time. Of such clear glances, witnesses of the times, we have ever more need today”.
Spyros Vassiliou, Artist Painter, Οctober 1979.
