ART REVIEWS

The case of the painter Zacharias Koumblis is an interesting one in all respects. First of all because he was admitted to the Fine Arts Faculty of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1985-90), after he graduated from the Geology Department of the Physics - Mathematics Faculty of the same university (1976-81). Futhermore he was immediately distinguished to the Fine Arts Faculty for his strong artistic personality with a particular sensibility and an individual way of expression, who manages, by assimilating the teachings of his teachers -Mimis Kontos and Vangellis Demetreas - to set the foundations of his own more general aesthetic constitution, without being subdued by the typical and characteristic artistic currents of the Faculty.
Therefore some of the basic features of his visual vocabulary, such as the simultaneous occupation with figurative and abstract formulations, the consecutive (in sirrah) character of his works, the small size and the personal way of composing and organizing his works, convince us that Koumblis is a special creator, who from very early on reveals the spontaneity and authenticity of his artistic style.
A peculiar characteristic of his painting, the importance of which we ought to comment on and evaluate, is his parallel interest in both figurative and abstract tendencies. The phenomenon, which is not unique - great artists such as Picasso, Miró, Ernst, etc. were distinguished for their stylistic multiplicity and contradiction - cannot be interpreted as a shaking of principles and aims. Possibly it could be related to the painter's innermost inclination to test his creativity in both manifestations in order to complement and improve them. Even the artist's fear whether his exclusive preoccupation with non-pictorial forms should ultimately lead him to a 'decorative' art or even to a painting of the accidental and uncontrollable, seems to oblige him to turn every now and then to figurative painting and especially to the human figure, from which he draws the organic forms necessary to avoid ending up in a sterile formalism.
Moreover, the production process of his works is articulated on the same basis, i.e. the dialectical relationship between rule and freedom, mind and instinct, the rational and the accidental. For the artist, who begins his works without having any predetermined idea, proceeds guided by his instinct and intuition which determine the way in which he will use his pure painting media (colour, colour values, colour matieres, line, form, composition, etc.). At the same time, and to the extent that he realizes that by exaggerating the random and spontaneous he runs the risk of ending up with a kind of automatic painting, he makes the essential interventions of control and organization, seeking a more permanent structure, the imposition of order and serenity, the balancing of contrasts and the controlled power of his artistic media. However, there are not a few cases in which the excessive intellectual approach deprives the painting of the necessary expressiveness, in which case he indulges once more to the charm of instinct in order to achieve the desirable balance for its artistic temperament.
His torturous struggle for the consummation of his artistic pursuit and the development of his aesthetic and expressive media, becomes more comprehensible in a number of works of art with a consecutive (in sirrah) structure, where the image is divided into multiple versions, presented as a polyptych, he reveals the desire - manifested in his student works - to take the research of the articulation and structure of form to its ultimate limits, through the logic of continuity and the inductive relation of the part to the whole, of the next to the previous. And while in these works the painted surface is distributed in many equal units, in terms of size and importance, in another, chronologically last unity, the weight of the composition is focused on the central, large, rectangular picture, which is framed by a frieze of secondary, individual and recurring pictorial cores. Thus, from the multi-focal mode of composition of the previous section of works, the artist arrives at a single-focal compositional concept, where the peripheral zone plays the role of supporting and highlighting the central representation and at the same time a secondary pictorial area, in which the basic chromatic and linear patterns of the main representation are morphologically explained.
The exhaustive search for the structure of form and the completion of his artistic vision through it is the basic aim of Zacharias Koumblis's efforts to date. A stranger to the charm of narrative chatter, an enemy of symbolic implications and critical disposition - even in his figurative works where the central motif is the human figure - but equipped with a secure knowledge of media and techniques, as his use of watercolour through successive monotypical coatings reveals, and with an enviable feeling of meter and rhythm, he manages to move successfully between representational and abstract tendencies. With his combination of chromatic and calligraphic-linear elements, with his restrained expressionistic use of colour, which allows him not to lose his poetic and lyrical voice, with his limited colour palette, which does not prevent him from achieving the essential colour tensions and with a wealthy artistic vocabulary which combines in a wonderful way the Apollonian and Dionysian elements, he creates works of art that are distinguished by their inner discipline, the density of expression and their classical mood.

Thessaloniki, November 1994.
Yannis Tsoutsas
Curator of the Art Gallery of the Society for Macedonian Studies

The analysis - reconstruction of form based on the human form and the reduction of his inner reality into symbolic or abstract compositions, were the main exploratory objectives of the painter Zacharias Koumblis in the early 1990s, a period during which, released from his student term at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, he began to chart his own course.
Since then, his design qualities, his almost miniature tendency, his sparing use of colour, his exuberant expressiveness and his persistent research into techniques and materials have advanced his work to an admirable degree in terms of quantity and quality.
By not succumbing to the late-introduced avant-garde imperatives of huge surfaces and exclusive use of spontaneous or random mega-gestural expressions, his fixation on small-scale works that, with their spatial-temporal, consecutive (in sirrah) development, have given an outlet to his design exuberance and deepening of his formalistic reflection.
His need to understand and express the inner truth of the organic form impelled him to a permanent reference to the human form and its paratactic analysis, in successive aspects or variations. At the same time, it makes him sensitive to influences and visual perceptions coming from sculpture, such as those of Thodoros Papagiannis.
Fascinated with paper and the way it behaves in water colours, he uses its potential in an imaginative way. The texture of his works is of particular interest to him. He is constantly trying out a variety of mixed techniques - monotype, brush, scratching, etching, second-use papers, colour powders, etc. - that give a sense of a well-worked or time-worn surface. Also noteworthy is the way the paper is integrated into the wood and the thoughtful finish of the latter.
The female figures - seated or reclining with a characteristic bending of the lower limbs - and the Musicians - male figures playing wind instruments - works from the period 1995 - 1996, are distinguished for their robustness. But this robustness is negated by the usually extensive use of a few, cold colours that deliberately 'freeze' the vital force of the form, transposing the 'images' to the eternal or referring them to historical memory rather than to contemporary situations. Indeed, the use of white as a field for the development of forms recalls the kind of iconographic approach cultivated in ancient Greek vase paintings. Interesting is the choice of ways of segmenting the visual field, especially of the heads, while the angle of view, which is positioned facing the subject, remains constant.
The space in which the forms exist is indeterminate, usually claustrophobic and rarely open and natural. When the exuberance of expression is tamed and the horror vacui does not impose too dense a composition, the intensity of the design elements is heightened. This characteristic, in parallel with the hazy, often grey colour scale, contributes to the creation of an understatedly melancholic, nocturnal atmosphere that is as if imbued with vague, unsettling inspiration.
Zacharias Koumplis belongs to those artists who seek a balance between inner feeling and experience of the external world. Already, his recent experiments with more materials - wood, metal, useless small objects of everyday life - lead him to new visual solutions that are now projected in space and move between plastic-painting and "structural " articulation of the composition.

Katia Kilesopoulou
Art Historian A.I.C.A.

«……Not sizes, simply hues»

RESEARCHES IN ZACHARIAS KOUMBLIS’ WORK

An artist who has never been attracted by the vastness of size and play immensity of gestures, Zacharias Koumblis essentially began his course during his studies at the School of Fine Arts of Aristotle University. His love for art and an inner need which are always characteristic of his artistic concerns led the geologist graduate to the above University.
His years of study (1985-1990) helped him to systematize on a theoretical and practical level everything which he knew empirically only and the same time to set the basis for a personal style. Starting off with oil paintings on canvas he quickly turned to cheaper materials like paper or cardboard.
This turn which was initially done out of necessity helped to free him- as the artist himself believes - from the ”fear of the value of materials” and it allowed him to develop many variations of the theme that occupied him. Former critics have already indicated the simultaneous studies of Koumblis in representative and abstract directions as well as the consecutive structure in a number of his works, mentioning the division of the picture in versions placed side by side2. In other cases the visual background would be divided in areas equivalent in size and structure or into a large rectangular representation surrounded by smaller parts and connected thematically and morphologically to them. One can observe the consecutive structure of his work even today, the most recent example being the theme of the female figure which is repeated with differentiations without however a distortion of the basic characteristics.
The art of Koumblis is the art of micrographic inclinations at the subtle hues based on a language that is efficacious and unaffected. Small size has always been his conscious choice, one that he never abandoned not even after the acquisition of a large studio in 1996. The spacious studio made it possible for him to experiment with even more materials and about all with various techniques which he had already made attempts on, thus creating three dimensional compositions. The size of the works that are hung on the wall however, does not change noticeable, and when size increases a detail of the main theme is enlarged and accentuated. After graduating, his research becomes even more systematic and includes all kinds of materials whether conventional or not. Water-colours, pencil, coal, plaster, iron, wood, fishing line, paper, silicone, are just some of the ones used. The artist believes that the “inquiring quality of Picasso's work and slightly less that of Matisse” here particularly influenced him, and he regards himself as “a visual artist, not simply a painter” because carving, the third dimension, the incorporation of real space in his work have always concerned him. Since 1992, in the series “inner landscapes” he has already made the first step in rendering an effect of relief with light and shade. Today relief is produced by the use of the materials themselves such as metal or wood.
The colour in the works of Koumblis has always had a structural function and it often ensues from interventions in the materials used. Engravings, oxidation, use of the burner, ,give texture and quality of colour that are quite unexpected. At other times, the colour and texture of materials remain unaltered, or colour that is clearly pictorial may be used on a low tone scale, the dominant ones being grey, off-white, blue-grey, ochre, integrating with burnt sienna, bright blue and islets of white and red like a breath of fresh air in the synthesis. The intervention of the burner, oxidation, engraving, scraping, make the surface look as if it is a palimpsest worn away by the time and human action. As ground for development in works which are constructed by analogous process, strong and resistant material is needed, thus the main use of plywood. Interventions by burning and engraving appear in his work if only in a germ, as far back as 1992. He really loves wood, both as basis for a synthesis, as well as for the textures it offers. At other times scriptures born out of a personal alphabet which brings to mind the simple scripture of Klee, perhaps as an honorary reference to the painter he particularly likes. It is worth nothing that in the works of Koumblis, the frames, do not act as simple frames which encircle and confine them. They form the necessary element for their completion and they more often than not become fields of chromatic and morphological study.
With the same creative persistence the artist studies the relation between the picture and its image. Monotypes with ink or water-colours and gauze or paper on thinner paper, newspaper, cardboard, are often used on the first stage of production of the picture. Then intervention with a wet sponge follows, and from the initial picture that which remains is its transformed image. At other times the artist, using silicone on a wet surface, forms the outline of the figure and then he goes on to “print” its trace on black cardboard, with an aerograph. This process is used in the series of the female figures and the musicians, and it must be noted that they have the same general characteristics with their former pictorial versions. In these series, the picture, its imprints, the recurrence of the image and its trace of co-exist simultaneously, multiplying the levels of the work of art and actual space is transubstantiated into visual space.
The human figure, female or male recurs constantly in his work as the main or the secondary element of the synthesis. Fragments of landscape, clearly abstract topics and figures, continue to exist as the central points of his researches. In the last few years however, Koumblis has begun to give us both wall compositions and free-standing works of art, which are frequently completed by movement and light. It is true that the three-dimensional volume at least and its precocious form, appears early in his work and so the structures could be considered as the natural result of his study. The artist himself, claims that he “approaches sculpting intuitively”. He started by engraving surfaces, burning wood with lighter, adding materials on the surface of the painting in order to give it volume and gradually his works incorporate actual space. Structural sculptures by Zongolopoulos, Thodoros, Th.Papagiannis, have kindled his interest. Evidently, according to his views, as important has been his contact with popular art and his acquaintance with primitive art. He is especially fascinated by the archetypal and the spontaneous of primitive art, which come close to abstracted forms, despite the fact that it obeys religious and ceremonial principles and his objective is “to attain these forms in his personal work”. In his compositions, Koumblis prefers the use of light materials. With small or larger parts of already used daily objects which co-officiate with pieces of wood, rope and wire, he creates a whole in which the materials’ experienced time, encounters the time of human intervention, a world where everything is reborn once again. The accidental plays an important part, but only concerning the point of the first encounter between the artist and his materials, because the choice and finally their use depends completely on him. When the objects do not retain their texture and colour, then the intervention and scripts have many analogies with the rest of his works. Metal is used frugally, often in perforated masses, so as to retract its weight. The dialogue between the void the whole that exists in the printings of Koumblis and even in the black and white of his drawings is completed here by combining visual and actual space. In certain structures, the use of springs adds the element of movement, whereas in others an unaltered light source has been added so that there is a subtle flow of light. In his game with shadows, different transparent sheets of paper and gauze also participate.
In a constant quest of his means of expression by approaches which the artist himself contrives, Zacharias Koumblis reveals the inner strengths of his materials - structural and morphological - by creating dream worlds. His visual proposals whether free standing or not abstract or abstractive, are formulated with imagination, eurythmy and poetic voice.

Angelici Sahini
Art Historian A.I.C.A.

(This text was based mainly on my discussions with the artist in his studio in Thermi, Thessaloniki, Spring 2001)

1. Manolis Anagnostakis, “P.S.” Nefeli publications, Athens, 1992, pg.28.
2. Yannis Tsoutsas, “Zacharias Koumblis, Painting”, One-Man Show Catalogue, Anny Balta Gallery, Thessaloniki, 1995, pg. 4-5.
3. On pine-tree bark, e.g. he engraved a small boat.

DIMITRA'S MITTA SPEACH

(08.03.2002-Inauguration of an Individual Exhibition, at the Macedonian Art Society Art of Kilkis - 8 to 22 March 2002)

Zacharias Koumplis is a multifaceted artist. In his works, art and technique coexist in unity, the idea with the intelligence and the spirit for its realization, the skill of the craftsman and the sensitivity of the artist, the insistence on details and the exhaustion of the possibilities of the materials he uses.
Koumplis paints on a variety of materials and frames his works with frames that delineate and simultaneously extend or continue the work through and interior subtle lighting that challenge the viewer to probe into secret places. He constructs works with inexpensive materials (old disc brakes, rusty nails, burnt wood, twigs, metal, threads, strainers, etc.), with remnants of nature's life or man's works. A "scavenger" of life, with all that it contains, an artist whose work reflects the usefulness of the useless, Kublis works in abstractions, from which there is no lack of recognizable contents and patterns, often recurring signs - guides and constants in a chaotic world - that the artist is constantly exploring, as if something is constantly escaping him or as if something he wants to confirm.
But regardless of the recognition of a specific content or patterns, which may or may not refer (consciously or unconsciously) to something, what is certain is that the organisation of each work results in an aesthetic effect and in the formation of a unifying work, where each part is subordinated to a whole, forming each time a separate organism.

March 2002
Dimitra Mitta
Philologist - Art Historian

ART IN EDUCATION

Art is one of those areas in which education can help develop a child's creativity and powers of expression, improve social cohesion among children, encourage acceptance of personal and cultural identities and make learning more efficient.
Children and young people cannot be satisfied with the purely mechanistic dimension of educational activities. They need to express themselves, they need to create. We as a society need an education system which will communicate and transform knowledge and culture through creative processes, without the depressing element associated with traditional methods - an education system which will combine effective knowledge with the joy of learning.
In the postmodern, globalized, technologically advanced and multicultural world in which we live today, an education system with a human face is absolutely essential. We need an education which will encourage children to develop a critical spirit, imagination, verbal and other skills; which rests on the principal of cooperation rather than competition; which will help create a culture of democracy, peace, understanding and social cohesion.
Contemporary research has shown that the above features, which define the human dimension of education, are integrally related to children's engagement with the language of the arts.
It is the ambition of the well-known painter and educator, Zacharias Koumblis, to initiate his students into an awareness of, as well as a practical and critical approach to the objectives and role of art in education.

Kostas Tselios
Painter - Professor of the School of Education
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Never be content with what you are
until you learn what you are not
Stephan Gechev

Zacharias Koumblis and the Glory of the Humble

The retrospective exhibition by Zacharias Koumblis provides the art loving public with an opportunity to follow the progress of the artist in the field of the Fine Arts. A course which revealed it special dynamism from the very beginning, when as a young graduate of Geology at the University of Thessaloniki, by not hesitating to listen to his internal impulse and his genuine artistic instincts by seeking paths which better reflected his nature and by abandoning Science and being initiated into the secrets of Art through studying painting at the School of Fine Arts
After a successful presence in the field of art for almost twenty years, artworks-rich in quantity and quality, and numerous individual and group exhibitions both in Greece and abroad, the artist can now take pride in the fact the decision taken in his youth has been vindicated although he continues - still prompted by the same internal need - his creative course, serving his vision with patience and persistence while the flame and creative fervour has not ceased to warm his soul.
Zacharias Koumblis is a man who impresses by his discretion and his thoughtfulness, characteristics which also feature in his works of art. The artist is not attracted by large sizes, loud colours, stark compositions but is charmed by what is small, humble, earthly, the thoughtful. Nothing vain lurks in his work as he does not seek to climb but to raise, he does place hope in conquest but in understanding, he does not take account of passion but of serenity.
This sense of the peaceful and humble runs in all of his work, a sense which can be defined as composure and wisdom of maturity. His artistic creations are connected with images engraved in the mind of every human being. Reminiscent of the golden light of sunrise, a loaf of hot, steaming bread, the murmur of the rain or the afternoon stretching over the hills. They relegate us to family homes which may not be violated, to sacred places to which you are invited to come to with humility.
The special, almost ritualistic reassuring atmosphere of his work certainly owes much to the way the artist handles colour. Warm, earthy colors make up his favorite palette. Ochre and sepia, cinnabar and deep red, purple and gray-brown. Tones of red, yellow and orange. Off-white, white, black, gray, bluish. Here and there a little cobalt, turquoise or ultramarin. Everything seems chosen and balanced by a careful hand. Nothing unfitting is permitted, no unnecessary exacerbation, nothing that could disturb the harmony and glory of the humble.
It would not be wrong to talk about personal choices, which however, bear the stamp of universality, as it is a color range familiar to every human, which derives from the universality of human experience. It is certainly true that this particular range owes much to technique, as each color is transformed and acquires special being under the influence of the technical process. The burning, carvings and oxidation leave their stamp on the painter's color quests and are converted into secret potions, with the help of which the color acquires its particular sensibility and expressiveness that characterizes the color choices of Zacharia. Colour interests the artist not only for its artistic value but as a bearer of life, this is why he insists on its transformation processes which, even metaphorically reflect the essence of creation and never tires of experimenting using a broad range of techniques.
The research nature of his work - which is confirmed by the repetition of types and variants of the same theme - is revealed by the approach to the creative process. The artist seems to begin the creative search in a purely intellectual way which differs little from the methods of scientific research. A minimum visual stimulus is sufficient to begin the process of creation. Then through continuous experiments he “encircles” his subject steadily until he can obtain the desired form. Nevertheless, throughout the course of the creative process he remains constantly vigilant in order to understand in time when the project is likely to lose its vitality and be left to instinct. Or again, the road that he follows is just the reverse, as the impulse that initially guides the hand and brush is reined in by the mind and logic in order to avoid excessive peaks that do not comply with the calm and harmonious atmosphere that is dear to the artist.
The two different approaches - the intellectual and instinctive - seem to function together also in the selection of materials used by the artist, as many heterogeneous materials are collected carefully with a view to finding their place in the work of art. In his studio beside the conventional materials suitable for artistic use, there is a host of other materials that have been chosen with almost religious reverence. The artist gifted with the patience and perseverance of the bee carefully gathers the essence of small, everyday things to create the precious spirit and patina of life that he wishes to be transfused to his work. Next to wood, which is the artist’s favourite material, we find paper, metal, silicone, plaster, rope, gauze, wire, stones, shells, leaves, sticks, fruit, feathers, fabrics, and many other cheap or tawdry materials . The special properties of all these materials are used with imagination and ingenuity and the heterogeneous materials are fully reconciled to the benefit of an expressive art, creating complete stunning works of art.
A key feature of the paintings of Zacharia Koumblis is the way in which the composition is organised. Many works are examples of {a painting within a painting}, since the theme is not confined to the usual main painting,(or painterly space) but extends to the frame in a way that transforms it into a second painting. In almost all of these compositions there is a combination of the figurative and the abstract in various versions. In some cases, the central composition adopts figurative expressions while the frame prefers abstract types which are easily perceived as space or landscape. At other times the figurative gives way to the abstract, as the central composition and the composition of the frame form abstract types. Finally there is the case where the abstract is relegated by the figurative and also the exact opposite scenario where forms that border on the abstract are prominent.
A typical example of the first case of the organization of the composition are works bearing the title "Figure" or "Musician". These human figures, male or female, often transferred to a transcendent and mystical place. Solitary, immersed in silence, usually in pairs and more rarely in small or larger groups. Always, however, equally lonely and silent, the forms are presented in the center, occupying almost the entire surface area of the "painting – form’’, while the " surrounding frame " area is a composition suggesting landscape or interior space.
Usually reclined, and sometimes seated or standing, are strongly plump and relief forms, have their hands loosely folded under the chest or abdomen or resting gently on their knees and appear to be to listening to the sound of their heart, both focused and in deep contemplation . Not wishing to identify with specific standards they avoid features that could make them specific. Even those same facial features are carefully erased, in order to respond more effectively to archetypal portrayals.
However, the thoughtful and peaceful forms that appear safe, robust and hardy, transfuse with striking immediacy ancient memories to today. When viewed, the mind goes back almost automatically to the reliefs of antiquity, as they evoke associations of the respective forms or clusters we find in metopes and friezes of ancient temples. But beyond and above any references to the cultural past, the artist with their help negotiates the question of human tragedy, accepting the premise and poetic interpretation of the world.
The second major group of works - where the figurative give way to abstract - works mainly fall under the title 'Composition'. In these works the human form is absent and the figurative is marked by elements of nature, usually solitary trees or clusters of trees. These patterns are repeated again and again. The trees, the sphere of the sun, the landscape is endless and mysterious. The artist effectively handles the artistic and plastic art values creating beautiful "painted reliefs", while impresses by the ability to portray almost miniature illustrations of monumental dimensions.
In the case of 'a painting within a painting "another group of works could be included which appear as though they have been taken from and old temple icons, conveying effectively the spirit of the past, reminding us of Byzantine methods and techniques. In these works the abstract is absent, as human figures occupy both the main composition and the zone, surrounded by the frame. These works refer to images of saints, in which the composition is organized in a similar way as the main composition hosts the image - portrait of the saint which is surrounded by scenes from his life or his sufferings.
Finally in the same category there are compositions in which abstract types prevail. These works bear the title "Polyptych" or "Composition" and follow a strictly structural logic, while the same sized or proportionally equal or parts generate single sets that are often read from left to right, while the frame of the painting ensures the smooth "visual transition" from one section of the work to the other without disrupting the harmony of the composition and integrity of the whole. The element of intimacy that is rooted in universal human experience, is evident in works of this section and is reminiscent of walls threadbare from rain, leather bound prayer books abandoned in closed churches, woodworm ridden boats, once favorite items and now ruined by rust . Ephemeral elegies, palimpsests of time past leaving their mark.
But there are works where the surround loses its function as a painting and the weight of the composition is transferred to the conventional painting surface. This group includes, among others, works belonging to the early and recent period of the artist. These works, although separated by long time span, seem to meet in a magical way, as real masterpieces, like “Stromatographies” of recent years, revealing affinity with the works of the early period, giving the impression of a return to Ithaca, but enriched with the wisdom and knowledge of life’s experience.
Examining these works we could possibly focus on the "role of the random", although the works themselves do not reveal that the random, in the case of Zacharias, is just another sign of his continual and persistent effort. Again in the case of these works it is obvious that the artist, who is possessed with a great concern for detail, seeks with patience and perseverance, the precise position of each material. Nothing escapes the careful eye and responsible hand of Zacharia. Scratching, carving, rubbing, erasing, giving life and form to the shapeless, exploiting in the best way the possibilities of his materials and resources. The choice of simple, almost monochromatic earth scale, the certain composition, freedom from fear of a vacuum, the feeling of confidence and maturity foreshadow a new creative direction of the artist.
In closing this brief reference to the work of Zacharia Koumblis it would not be possible not to mention a different but very interesting aspect of his artwork, his three-dimensional constructions. Works created with patience and enthusiasm which draw directly on primitive art, serving as reminders pagan totems, while at the same time creatively assimilating the teachings of folk carvers and the teachings of contemporary art.

September 2009
Eleni Kartsaka
Art Historian

The painter and art teacher Zacharias Koumblis

The works of the artist Zacharias Koumblis mainly consist of painting compositions, figures, triptychs, three dimensions constructions and compositions in space.
Through his works of art, the artist expresses his internal need for sentimental pursuit. They are works of art depicting his own impulse. Works in which colours are limited but variety in expression ways brims over with imagination and originality. Shapes, often “early literary”, which touch your soul with their small dimensions and their abstract, ingenuous forms. In other words, his art technique urges you to travel in internal scenery which resemble more research allusion than descriptive art.
His work is marked by an unceasing effort to explore the subconscious, a stroll through the unknown creative part hiding in each one of you. His mastery in mixed media usually leads him to the adoption of numerous and various expression ways and materials. Clusters of lines and materials, such as wood and metal, turn into fluid shapes and images.
Everything starts from his rich art experience and all his incentives come from social surroundings. His works are capable of acting autonomously; there is, however, an invisible thread which runs through them, defining them as creations of personal morphological style of abstract expressionism.
Apart from being a painter, Zacharias Koumblis is a wise art teacher as well. All his students love him and respect him. Not only by inspiring them to create in art but also by his attitude towards daily routine problems, he succeeds in giving them the opportunity to stretch out their own wings and fly towards faraway horizons and brand new places. This can be realized by whoever has the chance to get close to the artist and have a short conversation with him. Both his calm, versatile personality and his love for art, which he has been serving for so many years with constant interest, make him a unique person and artist.

Panos Tsolakis
Associated Professor of Architectural History,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Αny study of the work of Zaharias Koumblis will inevitably lead to certain basic conclusions on which the fundamental identity of the artist can be established
. One of the most fundamental traits of his career, since 1989, has been his tendency to create series of works, some of them relating to particular phases in his development, others persisting throughout his career to date.
Proceeding along his own chosen path, without dramatic variation, carefully structured through calm experimentation, in both shape and colour, Koumblis has succeeded in establishing a style personal to himself and sufficiently recognizable to mark and identify him.
From his early years as a student in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s School of Fine Arts he gave signs of the course he would take, the use of specific surfaces such as paper and card that later gave way to firmer materials, like hardboard, as well as the use of a whole range of materials (wood, charcoal, metal) whose interacting textures would create a wealth of effects of light and shade, a wide scale of chromatic tones.
All these factors, like the colours themselves – never applied uniformly to create a monochrome effect – contribute to the structure of the final work on a multiplicity of levels.
Koumblis’ discourse is articulated through subtle, sensitive draughtsmanship, the perfectionism of the miniaturist, leading the eye from a distance closer and closer into the intricacies of the work, feeling its shapes and volumes close-up, as if drawn into the heart of an impressionist game. Because however densely integrated the work may seem in its entirety and from a distance, its texture is in fact highly worked and structured, palpable in its subtle use of additional materials, delicately attached to the surface, enhancing the initial range of pure colour.
The individual identity of each work extends beyond the painted surface into the wooden frame, making the latter an independent and supremely satisfying artistic result alongside the surface it borders.
The inner energy, which tends to externalize itself through creative repetition, was inevitably at some point to find vent in a centrifugal impulse out into surrounding space. Thus the artist’s sculptural works and constructions demand the positive release of liberation, combining the quality of the materials already tried and tested in his mural works with the broadening of style and scale demanded by those occupying three dimensional space.
In many of the mural constructions light will issue from some source within the work to intensify and enhance the scenic structure of the composition.
In conclusion: through his sensitivity, knowledge of his own abilities and exploitation of that knowledge, Koumblis is charting a well balanced course, firmly and coherently structured.

Hara Theoharous
Art Historian – City Art Gallery

In our time, people usually live a divided life, making a living by practicing some profession, possibly incompatible with their nature and inner needs and devoting their free time to what their soul really loves and desires. This is because in our youth we succumb to the promptings of those who wish for our good and follow one path or the other ignoring the inner voice that calls us to follow what really suits us. Fortunately for him and for us, Zacharias belongs to the people who listened to his inner voice early and abandoning the original destiny that wanted him to serve the field of science, he followed the path of art. He consistently lived the life of an artist, exercising at the same time the function of an art teacher. He thus had the opportunity to devote himself completely and undividedly to art either creating himself or guiding children and young people on the paths of creation. That's how he lived always and everything as an artist. With short breaks of rest and reflection, he consistently continues the path he chose almost 30 years ago and from time to time invites us to a new exhibition.
Over the years, Zacharias's exhibitions became identified in our subconscious with something particularly intimate and familiar. They remind of a walk in the safe and friendly landscape of our childhood. A sunny ‘alana’, a clearing where we children used to play, a place with low vegetation, full of skinks, myrsines, gorse and rich, generous light, a place we think we know well and yet it continues to constantly surprise us with the unexpected fragrance of agrambel. Before each exhibition, fans of his work long for the moment when the new harvest will allow us to immerse ourselves in the mystery of interiority, thus participating in creation.
It is said that painting before it transforms into an image is, first and foremost, an adventure of the artist's mind and soul. An adventure that finally takes form and takes visible shape on the canvas. For this reason, behind the shapes, colors, forms, composition, the attentive viewer can also discover the feelings, values and temperament of the artist. By reading the images we can detect the course of life, the small joys, the hidden anxieties, the truth and the vision of the creator. In the case of Zacharias, looking for the creator behind the formal elements, the means and the technique, we find a measured, peaceful, kind and modest man whose spirit finds rest in the earthly, the humble, the contemplative.
In times when the painting space looks like a complex, difficult to understand enigma that to approach it is necessary to have rich and specialized knowledge and experience, Zacharias' work willingly reveals the secret forces that give it meaning. It is enough to approach the work with a clear eye to read and understand the archetypal symbols that hook the look, thought and feeling in a specific direction. The artist sensitively follows the lessons of the great masters of modern art who fragmented the form revealing the subtle formal proportions, however standing away from imitations and remaining faithful to his own special way. Following his own path, Zacharias creates a painting that returns nature and objects enriched with a sense of harmony and proportion, a painting that is not satisfied with the impression, but systematically filters the inessential, removes the unnecessary and rises to the formal and the universal. Through a constant process of rejection and control in his work he ends up being dominated by the unnecessary. The earth, the trees, the sky, the human form, the embrace, the tenderness, the companionship, the world of small things and subtle feelings remain as the only solid and stable elements of a universe that breathes the beauty and glory of the humble .
To build this universe, the artist uses a simple and laconic vocabulary that chooses its pixels with economy, moderation and self-control, insisting on creating representations that remain accessible without, however, succumbing to the ease and poverty of the commonplace. Approaching the illustrative universe of Zechariah we will find the dominance of certain elements, first of all the dominance of the human form. These are female and male figures who are usually shown seated, placed side by side. They seem to converse with understanding, sometimes succumbing to a subtle embrace that reveals their spiritual and physical intimacy. With their arms crossed on their chests, they initiate a quiet monologue with the viewer. At other times the same archetypal figures appear in small or larger groups, and at other times they seem to be meditating alone and immersed in silence. In a similar way, simple, natural forms, usually trees with generous foliage, celestial spheres that refer to the sphere of the sun or elements that recall human activity and the built environment are integrated into a vast and mysterious landscape creating a transcendent, mysterious space.
A key role in building the transcendental atmosphere is played by the organization of the composition, which effectively combines the representational with the abstract. In almost all of the compositions we observe a harmonious alternation of the two modes that shows the various versions of an idiom that persistently incorporates the context into the painting space. Usually, the central composition adopts figurative expressions and the frame prefers abstract types that are easily perceived as space or landscape. At other times, the representation gives way in favor of the abstract, as both in the central composition and in the composition of the frame, abstract types are developed. Finally, there are cases where the abstract is displaced by the representational as well as cases where types that almost touch the abstract predominate.
Whichever method is preferred, the result is equally charming as the artist knows how to effectively handle painting and plastic values, giving monumental dimensions to his depictions. This is exactly where the power of Zacharias is hidden, which has the ability to transform an empty, modest space into a cosmic transcendental landscape, a simple tree figure in a primitive form, everyday human presences in statues taken down from ancient friezes or figures that refer to monumental, spiritual monoliths by Henry Moore.
Another key characteristic of Zacharias' art is that he consciously avoids the rhetoric of spontaneity and the orchestrated intensities and contrasts of chance, creating compositions that obey a strictly structural logic. Every artistic stimulus is submitted to the diligence of the painstaking exercise that gradually reveals the relationship between the objective and the visible. In this sense, his aesthetics is inextricably linked to the creative act as a technique, a fundamental assumption in artistic creation, as technique in the work of a conscientious creator has equal value to inspiration and talent. In the aforementioned context, the creator consciously avoids flashy external brilliance and ostentatious craftsmanship. He is measured by patience, persistence, painstaking practice, values that imbue his works with intimacy. A careful overview of the work can reveal to us elements of the research character of a painting that, starting from a minimal visual stimulus, ends up in the desired form by strictly controlling every intemperance, every exaggeration and excessive impulse that threatens the calm and harmonious atmosphere that gives the mark of his artistic style.
With corresponding procedures through continuous experimentation and control, the means are also selected. Inside simply, austere, humble. Often unpretentious and without exaggeration. Sometimes insignificant, which nevertheless acquire special value and substance under the influence of the technical process. Through burning, etching, oxidation that leave their mark on the painter's expressive pursuits in a similar way and the colour acquires its special expressiveness. Nothing is left to chance, everything is carefully selected and weighed to produce this harmonious colour range with its wonderful warm, earthy colours, ochre, sepia, cinnabar, crimson, violet, gray and cobalt , the ultramarine, the turquoise that come to add their cool notes while being careful not to disturb the harmony of the unnecessary.
As you may have already suspected, I share a discreet, long-term friendship with Zacharias. A friendship sustained not so much by daily intercourse as by mental kinship and emotional similarity. I have been fortunate to follow his creative path for years, a path that I believe has all the characteristics of a genuine spiritual mission, while at the same time it is distinguished by the quality of the choices of a genuine esthete who maintains unshakable his belief in beauty in a difficult for the aesthetic era. Deaf to the sirens of the times, Zacharias still invests in persistent and painstaking practice constantly perfecting various aspects of his technique and manages to attract us with the depth, gentleness, refined sense and deep spirituality of his works. In defiance of the times that want time to sweep away every value of yesterday, Zacharias remains faithful to representations that possess the quality of a hagiography, a modern hagiography that focuses on spirituality and beauty.
My friend Zacharias what do you say, in the cloudy days we live beauty will finally be able to save the world?

March 2016
Eleni Kartsaka
Art Historian