I hope I’m countering the negativity that’s always in the news by being in the press with positive paintings that people find uplifting.
Translation to English:
I Feel Like an Art Ambassador to Greece
Greece inspires my art.
Tropical beaches in Europe. Guaranteed good weather. Mountains, special architecture and sea. Greece is so beautiful.
My art inspires people to visit it.
I hosted a collector of works of art from Northern Europe at a private presentation of my exhibition, and while they were planning to buy a painting from Belgium, they ended up buying a painting from Greece! They then told me that the location I had painted – Naxos Island in particular – has become their first priority for their next vacation. This makes me proud of the beauty of my “adopted” country. It makes me feel like an art ambassador for Greece.
In addition to beauty
The paintings are not intended to be just aesthetically pleasing, there is still underlying philosophy, mythology, the cultural context.
My painting of Cape Tainaro changes, you might reflect on it more peacefully, when you know it is the mythological gateway to the underworld.
The Temple of Sounion of Poseidon seems more impressively ancient when you feel young compared to the age of the architecture.
The view of Meteora is a unique mix of cultural heritage and ancient geology.
My motivation is that I miss Greece
I named my exhibition IMMENSITIES. This is a collection of great landscapes of Greece and Belgium. Although my life between Greece and Belgium is a “permanent journey,” the boundaries are missing from this collection.
The art collector who came to buy a painting about Belgium, but ended up buying a painting from Greece, taught me that although there is a very personal journey for me here, with the presence of these two countries in my life, and my response, in terms of their beauty, as an aesthetic experience. And yet, even though the collector cannot travel outside the “Red Zone” of Belgium at the moment, they were inspired to visit Naxos. How much I miss Greece was “translated” through art as a source of inspiration into their enthusiasm to visit it.
The collection is presented in an exhibition entitled IMMENSITIES at the Art Base gallery in Brussels from 24 September 2020.
* Tamar Levi is a painter and author of children’s books She grew up in Alaska, lives in Belgium and has “married” into Greece – See more at https://tamarlevi.com/
