Iasonas Kampanis

Iasonas Kampanis was born in 1985 in Athens (Greece), where he currently lives and works. He studied jewelry design and fine arts at the Mokume Institute in Thessaloniki. Since 2007 he is working with painting, performance photography, digital media and scenographic works. He is inspired by themes and motifs related to the history of painting, the Mediterranean tradition and pop culture. In 2020 he received the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Award by ARTWORKS. He has collaborated and exhibited, among others, with Rebecca Camhi Gallery (Athens), curator Marina Fokidis, the 61st Thessaloniki International Film Festival and MoMus, KEIV (Athens), Victoria Square Project (Athens), kunsthallekleinbasel (Basel), architect Pulcheria Tzova, director Maria Panourgia, Onassis Stegi (Athens), documenta 14 (Athens), director Maria Gaitanidi, actress Stacy Martin, Museum of Typography (Chania), Byzantine and Christian Museum (Athens), Sygchrono Theatre (Athens), Michael Cacoyannis Foundation (Athens), Islington Arts Factory (London), Bishopsgate Institute (London), Lubomirov/Angus Hughes Gallery (London), Ligne Roset Westend Showroom (London), Design Exchange magazine, London Print Studio (London), Christie’s Head of Prints & Multiples Murray Macaulay, Teloglion Art Foundation (Thessaloniki), performer Irina Osterberg, 4bid Gallery (Amsterdam), O3 Gallery (Oxford) and zoologist Desmond Morris. He has also been engaged in printmaking, film and theater productions, Byzantine iconography, educational programs and painting workshops. Since 2017 he delivers painting and visual perception seminars at his studio.

Artist’s statement

My work and research are based on Mediterranean culture and the place that animals and non-human natural entities hold within it. Traces of human presence, rather than its solid depiction,function as an acknowledgment of the animistic origins of religious worship, and the concept of ‘authorization’ to the protective spirits of a place, the geniilocorum of classical Roman religion. As the term genius loci today also refers to the character or the essence of a place, spirituality within this notion cannot be of meaning, for me, if cut off from the transcendental and from its manifestations in the relationships among the artificial and the natural world. The evolution of the conquering practices of humans towards our species and by extension towards nature, gradually distanced us from its homogeneous, spiritual and symbolic value, with the consequence that we compete with it by positioning it as controllable, fully expendable and constantly observed. Therefore, I seek to contribute in bringing back to the center of the discussion, our mystical type of kinship with the other animals, our identification with them, and by extension, with nature. My primary motivation is in the renewal of our communication with the enduring character of a place, within the experience of the sacred, within the sense of universality and its sources, all of which we have abused to such an extent that we find it difficult to define ourselves outside of our anthropocentric evocations.