I started my cooperation with Artflakes.com.... If you want my works in poster, on canvas etc go to Artflakes and order it...
For example go to : www.artflakes.com/en/pr​… buy "Parthenogenesis"
Soon most of my past artwork and paintings will be there....

An analysis of my work by the Art Critic Dimitris Charitos, published with many pictures of my work in the ZYGOS annual (With a wonderful company of other Greek Artists You can find the book in e-bay...

                                                  Something more than technical perfection

The charm of illusion and the various methods used to stimulate the imagination are among the vital ingredients of art. They form the basis of much-of the painter's artifice, as long as he refuses to let himself be led astray by the delusive appeal of the ersatz. Art is not needed for the purpose of making reproductions based rigidly on the principles that govern the "real" world. It is not a window looking out on to everyday reality, and therefore a work of art is neither an antecedent nor a sequel nor another version of that reality, A work of art is a new object created by the will of the artist and the fact of coinciding with what pre-exists. Amidst the infinity of coincidences, the creator's artistic will is always insatiable and the painter's world of objects is free of emotional entanglements and available for continuous renewal. The value of the artist's efforts, which are aimed at achieving a better understanding of the world, lies in this autonomy and self-sufficiency of the artistic object; but one of the prerequisites of the artist's efforts is that there shall be no trace of naturalism. In art, fortunately, dreams are not subject to deterministic laws of cause and effect. The artist's freedom is unbounded: the end alone justifies the means.

I have put down these thoughts in the belief that they may perhaps lead us towards a sounder approach to the work of Tassos Kouris by minimizing the initial sense of shock and astonishment aroused not only by his choice of subject matter but also by his superb technical mastery, which, taken as a whole, one might almost describe as a magnificent immoderation. True, all that hard work, that meticulous attention to detail, those endless hours he spends on his paintings, are not a virtuosic end in themselves. His knowledge of classical painting and his undisguised love of the Pre-Raphaelites provide this "maniac for technique" with something more than a tool: they give him the power of creative transcendence, whenever that helps him to attain what he is striving for. But at the same time they are two more components of his artistic identity.
No one can deny that the kind of mastery exemplified by flawless technique and meticulous workmanship is one criterion of artistic merit. It is from the Pre-Raphaelites, in particular, that he has drawn his love of beauty and the sort of realism that finds expression in minute attention to detail. But Kouris uses the showy externals of beauty, and of preoccupation with technique, in absolute conjunction with the content of his painting-In other words, it could be said that his technical mastery has its meaning and its justification in what he paints, rather than in the way he paints it. His work does not obey the logic of a landscapist or a portraitist or a painter of still-life. It is dramaturgic painting. His pictures lay no claim to the kind of realism that properly belongs to a Nikon or a Canon, nor do they provide a substitute tor it They neither copy nor simulate objects, even though the viewer has no difficulty in naming the objects as constituent elements of the pictures. On the contrary, they boldly proffer their own alternative visual reality, their own alternative visual mythology, which is right outside: the range of Ptolemaic anthropocentricity or Aristotelian logic. His versions of places, people and things, in all their,; various combinations, know no numerical limits, since: it is only through chance, accidental discovery or some unexpected turn of events that: the endless chain of associations can put an end to these versions or interpretations of the visual narrative. Kouris' artist's license is unlimited and provocative, because it is made with the materials of a perpetually self-negating logic which nevertheless does not cease to perform an evidential function.
Anyone who repudiates the conventional reality in his art will sooner or later have to put forward some alternative reality, which, by the very nature of things, will be not only unconventional but also — almost inevitably — formalistic. Faced with this danger of humdrum repetition, Kouris offers not one but an infinite number of realities, all equally "real", equally probable and equally captivating. These, however, are not innumerable versions of the reality of the absurd or of Surrealism, but of another, imaginary, reality, which is highly desirable for art in its poetic dimension.
I think it is not difficult to detect in Kouris' paintings a striving to depict time as the archetype and essence of eternity, which every creative artist has always aspired to do; a hopeless striving — which may equally manifest itself in movement or in immobility — to express eternity by means of the fleeting present. In Kouris' paintings time seems to be trapped in its very stream, and its apparent motionlessness makes it visible. You can put out your hand and touch it. His seas are calm, his skies never threatening; objects coexist in an alliance that disarms all rationalistic determinism; bodies are "contained" in their void, or their presence is inferred from their impact on the surrounding space. Faces seem to have their gaze fixed on some point undefined in space or time; they know no emotional turmoil; they are ignorant of memory and death. They seem to be saying, with Borges, "Our life would be much poorer if it were not everlasting." And this is true insofar as the ephemeral is a constituent element of eternity.
All the time that Kouris is painting, he is searching avidly for his artistic style, his artistic origins, his artistic spirituality. Every new picture of his amounts to a confrontation with his own artistic calibre. He brings to mind the words written by the French critic Philippe Sollers about Poussin: "The sole end he has in view is painting, in the modern sense of the word, that is to say striving for a perfect work which will invalidate all that have gone before." The only fixed point of reference that one can discern is his birthplace, Corfu, which is the almost invariable setting of his work, a setting sometimes explicit and sometimes merely hinted at — a geographical matrix that has molded his art. This may, perhaps, be the origin of his somewhat theatrical approach to spatial arrangement, which conveys a "stagy" atmosphere in asmuch as everything is exaggerated and larger than life, though never melodramatic. And his pictures possess all the lyricism of a deliberately subdued melancholy, always discreetly suggested by his rich, almost musical, tonal values.
One point that deserves our special attention is that although Kouris' work is unquestionably modern, his techniques are based on those of the great classical school and of Baroque and the Pre-Raphaelites. He adheres to the classical principles of unity and integrity of shapes, equality of lighting, closed forms and smooth gradations of color. There are times, however, when he dramatizes landscapes, submerging some of the forms in shadow. " Then the color tones will be analyzed even more minutely on the surfaces of objects by means of successive layers of paint, often transparent, revealing subtle qualities and palimpsest relationships of the subjects depicted, which are enwrapped in, or emerging from, a cocoon of white.
Kouris is a genuine neo-romantic who recounts in a lyrical way, but with a realistic purpose, the validation of his imaginary reality: a projection of the past into the future.
DIMITRIS HARITOS



Past news....

My third D.D.!!!! And it is my signature piece!!!! Already in the Vorres Museum of Modern Art... An Oil painting on linen Canvas that attracted many deviants before it got this prestigious title of a D.D.!!!
                                            My Parthenogenesis
Thanks a thousand times the one that suggested it AND the one that featured it!!!! (Suggested by and Featured by snowmask )
I feel honored and moved!!!! And always near my birthday on 23th November!!!! Thanks again!!!

AND, AS ALWAYS WHEN I GET A D.D., THE PERVERT HIT!!! THE DROP OF LIFE

Mature Content

WAS REPORTED AS MATURE BY THE IMMATURE PERVERT!!! MY DEAR PERVERT, ONE THING IS FOR SURE!!! YOU WILL NOT LEARN TO PAINT AND YOU WILL NEVER LEARN TO APPRECIATE ART!!! AND STAY AWAY FROM THE MUSEUMS... THEY ARE FULL OF "MATURE" ART!!!!


THE PORTFOLIO!!! What a feature!!!!
here it is:
tassoskouris.daportfolio.com

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I decide to post some points of my interview to AnnaKirsten and DWALKER1047(August 2007) in order to introduce myself to Deviants who do not know me...

Do you have any formal training as an artist?

Well… You have to keep in mind that after WW2 Corfu (the Greek island, were I was born and raised) was, (in fact all Greece was) very poor and trying to rebuild her dilapidated former glory in Music (Opera especially) and Art in general… To have ambition to have Painting as a solo profession at that time was a ticket to poverty… My father, a man with good education in Music (Maybe the best baritone the island of Corfu produced) did not have art as a profession, and as a pro-education but practical man, wanted his son to have a profession that would always put bread on his table..

So for him painting was to be my lover, but Medicine my wife… I went to an Art school we had then in Corfu, that worked in the afternoons while in the mornings we attended normal school education… There I learned the discipline of classical drawing by teachers to whom I am still grateful… And nothing more, not color, not freedom of expression… After school, I went to Athens to be a Doctor… I finished medical school with most excellent grades (sketching all the time) and decided to specialize in Ophthalmology to serve Vision… Vision that in turn can be used to appreciate ART… And during my studies in Medicine, I had my first book on Magritte, then Ernst and then DALI…

I found my paradise… Color for me was then an absolute necessity… I started reading books on painting techniques, mediums, oil colors, watercolors etc… I self educated myself doing 2 paintings in the size of the originals… One of Greco and another of Velásquez's , mimicking their way of using colors and brushes and then I started my own oil paintings…

Wild things at first, paintings overloaded with symbolisms and meanings as if there would not be another painting…

Later I calmed down, one theme one idea at a time… I started exhibiting to the premier Gallery of Greece, at that time, ZYGOS… Most of my paintings were sold immediately…

Thinking that all my painting life was in front of me, I even had not photographed each painting that was sold… The "catalogue résonnais" was far from my mind.. Pity, many - many paintings are now lost to me and I try to remember the owners so I can take a snapshot of them … The recklessness of youth!

What software do you normally use for preparing a work for display on the internet?

CS3.

Do you have a preference for the type of picture you like to create?

The whole image comes instantaneously to my mind… As a whole. As a real Dreamscape… Then starts the refinement, but not the betrayal of the initial idea… The backdrop (usually my beloved Corfu), the composition, the meticulous under painting, the main painting and last, the lights…

Can you give a brief overview of the various techniques you use?

In oil paintings, classical almost Flemish, execution "lege artis";
In watercolor experimenting new methods;
In sketching mostly graphite and carbon.

What sort of things inspire your artwork?

Visual and mental inputs… When an image comes I don't question it… I put it on paper as a fast sketch, and if the next day it still talks to me then the adventure, small or big, starts…

Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?

Learn the essential from your teachers, then open your wings… Don't be a slave of your teacher and don't reject him either… Use him as a step, so you can climb toward your own imagination…

And be kind in your critique to other artists… A bravo tends to push an artist upwards, if he is really honest in his work..

Do you have any future plans for diversifying your artwork?

My future plans are to find time for painting, because Hippocrates holds the muse by the neck…

Medicine is a very demanding wife and Art, my eternal mistress suffers lately…

Is there anything else you'd like to add about what you do?

Art is a need for creation… There is not Parthenogenesis in Art… But advances, variations, oppositions, diversifications…

There are shining minds and talents, but even the little stars have their merit in the constellation of Art.





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