NEWS
February 2025
FLOW II
Keramikos23 Art Space, Athens
07.02 - 5.4.2025
Curated by Paolo Incarnato and Thalia Kerouli
Rivers will flood regardless of how much their estuaries are redirected. They will flood regardless how high the embankments are raised. They will flood regardless of built channels. Rivers flood whenever they need to flood. That's how rivers tend to free themselves out of the harness of humans.
But rivers they do not only flood. They sometimes leak through elsewhere if they have been damed or directed for example into a canal or tunnels. In Athens it has been discovered that there are underground lakes within the Kifissos River’s subterranean course, raising serious concerns about infrastructure stability. The biggest, over 50 meters long and up to two meters deep underground lake, has eroded the riverbed and weakened foundational pylons*. In this case the water had leaked through man made concrete riverbed.
* https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/environment/1257688/kifissos-the-underbelly-of-urban-neglect/
In 2018-2019 Sebastian Boulter went through and examined the 7km long tunnel of the River Ilisos and did two exhibitions, Lead the Way and The Other Side, with cooperation with the Finnish Institute at Athens. In 2020-2024 he did a research on five rivers. They have in common that they all border to or run through sites explored by the German Archaeological Institute at Athens: River Eridanos at the Kerameikos in Athens, River Imbrasos at the sanctuary of Hera at Samos, River Alpheios at the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia, River Inachos at the Mycenian citadel at Tiryns and River Kephissos at the Kephissos valley in ancient Phokis. From this research he did an exhibition in December 2024 at Andreas Lentakis Foundation and published a book Flow, (futura Publications - Michalis Paparounis, Charilaou Trikoupi 72, 10680 Athens), futurabooks.wordpress.com *
* https://futurabooks.wordpress.com/2024/12/28/1374/
Flow II is the fourth exhibition in Athens that Boulter has done on rivers. He has created gypsum casts by using the discarded plastic bottles that he has found on the sites of the rivers. Red and black casts, as well as white ones allude to the characteristic ancient Greek pottery painting techniques (black-figure, red-figure and white-ground). In addition to the casts of the plastic bottles he depicts in his water color works contemporary archaeological findings from the rivers he has gone by.
Flow II exhibition at Keramikos23 Art Space, Athens
December 2024
FLOW
Andreas Lentakis Foundation, Athens
20.12.2024 - 5.1.2025
Curated by Stratis Pantazis and Vassiliki Vayenou
The exhibition was supported by the Kone Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Fascinated with the transformative power of the rivers, as well as their vital role as natural landmarks, Sebastian Boulter focused on ancient rivers, canals and tunnels which run -or used to run- through five archaeological sites in Greece. In an effort to view the current state of rivers around Greece, their remains, and in some cases feel their invisible presence, Boulter visited the rivers Eridanos (Kerameikos, Athens), Kephissos (Valley of Kephissos, Boeotia), Alpheios and the Kladeos (Olympia in Elis), Inachos (Tiryns in the Argolid) and the river Imbrasos (Heraion, Samos).
In the exhibition Flow, which includes his drawings, paintings, gypsum casts and essays (2020 – 2024) that serve as a diary/documentation of his wanderings and search, the viewer witnesses the current condition of these ancient rivers. Boulter’s works express his environmental and cultural concerns and ethos by recording the destructive effects of human abuse on nature and human history and by providing a visual critique on the intertemporal political neglect and mistreatment of the Greek rivers. The artist’s written narrations of his experiences during his visits to the different rivers and their surroundings constitute a complementary testament to his pictorial depictions, truthfully revealing not only the lack of political responsibility, but also the sometimes open animosity of people who ignore history and environmental awareness.
Vassiliki Vayenou and Stratis Pantazis
Flow, Andreas Lentakis Foundation, Athens, 2024
Symposium, 100x100cm, oil on canvas, 2024
Sourse of RIver Eridanos, 100x100cm, oil on canvas, 2024
Replica of Attic white-ground pottery painting, plaster cast of plastic bottle
Replica of Attic black-figure pottery painting, plaster cast of plastic bottle
Replica of Attic red-figure pottery painting, plaster cast of plastic bottle
October 2022
OF WATER
Automat Space, Saarbrücken, Germany
22.10. - 6.11.2022
Curator, Timo Poeppel
Of Water, Automat Space, Saarbrücken, Germany
February 2020
THIS SIDE
Chili Art Gallery, Athens
7.2. - 27.2.2020
Curator, Paris Kapralos
Finnish institute at Athens contributed realizing the exhibition
From the pitch-black environment Sebastian Boulter digs out with charcoal the little light that can be imagined in the tunnel. There are penetrating roots appearing through the ceiling and collapsed sections of the roof, the floor and the walls. It is possible to discover sources, drainage pipes, Eridanos meeting Ilisos, rats and hundreds of cockroaches. The visual language of the works tends to diverge from realism to the world of imagination and illusion that cannot be avoided in the dim tunnel.
Artist's statement
This Side, Chili Art Gallery, Athens
May 2019
LEAD THE WAY
FokiaNou Art Space, Athens
9.5. - 1.6.2019
Curators, Mary Cox and Panagiotis Voulgaris
The exhibition was organized in collaboration with Finnish Institute at Athens and with a financial support from VISEK (Centre for the Promotion of Visual Art).
Socrates:
Let us turn aside here and go along the Ilisos; then we can sit down quietly wherever we please.
Phaedrus:
I am fortunate, it seems, in being barefoot; you are so always. It is easiest then for us to go along the brook with our feet in the water, and it is not unpleasant, especially at this time of the year and the day.
Socrates:
Lead on then, and look out for a good place where we may sit.
Phaedrus:
Do you see that very tall plane tree?
Socrates:
What of it?
Phaedrus:
There is shade there and a moderate breeze and grass to sit on, or, if we like, to lie down on.
Socrates:
Lead the way.
Plato, Phaedrus, 229a-229d
FokiaNou Art Space is pleased to present the work of Sebastian Boulter, an Athens-based painter from Finland whose work often refers to environmental issues. He is interested in manipulated landscapes by human beings and other traces and tracks that humans leave behind them in nature. This exhibition of a series of drawings and paintings takes as its subject the river Ilisos, from the area between Kaisariani and Kallithea. Although this part of the river has been covered, that does not preclude one from having a philosophical discussion with a friend next to the river.
Artist's satament
Lead the Way, FokiaNou Art Space, Athens