The rare luck of attending a master class by a great painter of our time, the George Rorris, had those who attended yesterday at noon in the atrium of the Goulandris Museum, the summer exhibition of which in Andros will be dedicated to his work.
«The Andros exhibition gives me the opportunity to see my works that I haven't seen for thirty years», he revealed, and when asked what it's like not to see a painting for so many years, he disarmingly replied «you imagine it, but it's not the same. I've seen my old paintings and seen myself, but with a different physical edge that I don't have anymore. Another sharpness and precision of vision that I no longer have. I believe very much in the participation of the body in the creation of this art.
For me, painting is a body of expense and destruction. It is not a matter that ends in the intellect, the spirit. As their will have been preceded by a physical bacillus.».
The exhibition of George Rorris in Andros, entitled «The nobility of the unpretentious» and running from 4 July to 3 October, follows a retrospective approach to his work, including almost 60 paintings and drawings and attempting to trace his artistic development through three sections.
The painter, with a Doric, straightforward and moving speech, revealed, during yesterday's presentation, his philosophy on his own art, saying that «the tables that exist contain those that existed before. And those that have existed before, if we had the discernment to look at them more carefully, we would see that they encapsulate in seed what is to be. As is the case with every living man-which is an invocation of that which no longer exists, of that which precedes him, of his ancestors, of his parents, whose influence lives in him-so it is with paintings.».
In the Andros exhibition, as G. Rorris revealed, «in a strange way, the first painting we will see, from 1983, entitled ‘The Painter and the Model’, and the last one of last winter, of 2020, in quarantine, are linked to this relationship. In the former, one can see clearly and viscerally the latter. And this last one, I want to believe, in turn contains in its seed those who, if it is destined, will follow.».
The painter also insisted on the relationship that is created between the work and the viewer. «I have observed hundreds of painters' work. And this is the path through which a painting lives. The continuation of the painting is the person who sees it. Without the man the painting is a dead surface. Thus, every painting has as many aspects as the people who see it, because they give the interpretation. Some aspects of their soul are healed or covered or comforted by the painting or the poem or the musical work.», he commented.
«You paint a picture alone, you do it for yourself, to heal a lack, a pain, an absence, a deep and unhealed wound, your soul, and suddenly, after years, you realize that what you are doing comes at a time when you see that others are interested. You see other people being moved. And there comes another moment, like now, when you are honored for what you have done and that is always a great surprise,» he concluded.
The rare shyness and kindness of the artist and man was captured in a short story by the director of the foundation and the museum, Kyriakos Koutsomallis, when, moved, he remembered that after his return from Prado, Rorris had confessed to him: «I can't be a painter»!
Referring to the works, the curator of the exhibition, Maria Koutsomallis, noted that «Rorri's works are battles, very often they will succeed, others will fail, but he always tries».
