Sebastian Boulter

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leak

 

Lignit open pit

 

Aquarelles II

 

Aquarelles I

 

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 

 

 

 

 

 

Andreas Lentakis Foundation

 

Flow, Andreas Lentakis Foundation, Athens, 2024

 

 

 

L1007528

 

Symposium, 100x100cm, oil on canvas, 2024

 

 

 

L1007524

 

Sourse of RIver Eridanos, 100x100cm, oil on canvas, 2024

 

 

 

 

NEWS L1005748

 

Replica of Attic white-ground pottery painting, plaster cast of plastic bottle

 

 

 

NEWS L1005752

 

Replica of Attic black-figure pottery painting, plaster cast of plastic bottle

 

 

NEWS L1005754

 

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

 

 The exhibition was supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland
 

 

 

Water covers about 71% of Earth’s surface. Of all water on Earth 97% is seawater. From the rest of 3% of fresh water on Earth 77% is ice and 22% is in soil and bedrock. Only about 1% of the world's fresh water is easily usable in lakes, rivers and reservoirs: it means a minimal share of 0.036 percent of all water on Earth. Only 0.001% of our water floats in the clouds.
 
All water has always gone around in cycle. It rains, it runs in rivers, it evaporates. It also gets stuck in ground, bedrock, ice or in humans and other living species, but still it is in very slow and constant movement. And although its quantity hasn't changed that much, it does not necessarily mean it is a renewable resource because its quality has changed.
 
However, the scientists still argue about the origin of the water. In some theories the water on Earth might be older than the Earth itself. The theory relies on the claim that in the beginning the Earth was hot. Therefore it might be that the water has landed on Earth from elsewhere.
 
So, we do not really know how it has appeared here. Therefore, water in its all forms and all forms that has water remains quite a
mystery.
 
The exhibition consists of an installation of gypsum prints, video works and charcoal drawings of river Imbrasos in Samos island, Greece, which in its stark state epitomizes the state of many other rivers around the world.
 
Artist's statement
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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