Cape Sounion

This painting, Cape Sounion, was a triumph for me in achieving an atmospheric play of depth and light. While maintaining a consciousness of the brush stroke being applied. I suppose this was a bow to impressionism without being pictorial. Said another way, I was balancing the illusion of depth with the visceral presence of the paint’s surface. Or at least trying to.

This is a magical point at the end of a peninsula in Greece on which sits the Temple of Poseidon. Surrounded by a deeply blue, glittering Aegean Sea, often under the onset of swirling clouds. The color palette here captured the blue, the clouds, the grey-brown rock of fallen ruins, some notions of bronze coins. I introduced varying color from left to right within the alternating thin and thick stripes. To try and capture the experience of the context: ethereal, moving, flowing yet eternal.

–STELIOS author of The Oculus