Nikos Neztekidis | Diaries 2015-2019

As if pouring out of the horn of plenty are the many forms that constitute Nikos Neztekidis’ exhibition, Diaries 2015-2019. Over the last five years, the artist has been drawing in small sketchbooks capturing in a spontaneous manner his varied states of mind. This depiction of the inner workings of the mind is produced by the use of a little-explored technique adopted by the artist, called automatic painting. Psychic automatism in art is capturing the associative flow of thought with as little conscious intervention as possible. The Surrealists, who were seeking to find the meeting place of dream and reality, considered this technique as the purest means of artistic expression, free from the compulsions and finger pointing of society. Undoubtedly, automation gives way to the random and the spontaneous, but it also requires the skilled hand of the artist to push the technique to its limits, as it can easily lead to incoherence. Consequently, a well-implemented automatism produces original contrasts between seemingly incompatible shapes or colors, as well as shapes that give birth to other shapes, never seeming to settle into one fully recognizable finite form. The artist’s persona, his worldview, or explanatory comments are all secondary, as they prevent the viewers from letting themselves go in order to observe the works and use their imagination. Furthermore, the artist wishes the viewer to exercise his innate and notably human capacity for pareidolia, that is, the phenomenon in which we see something where it may not exist, and which often depends on our own frame of mind....more

Nikos Neztekidis was born in Thessaloniki and lives in Athens. He studied painting at the School of Fine Arts in Thessaloniki. He participated in a group exhibition with graduates of the School at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art where he was awarded. His first solo exhibition was in Aladza Imaret in Thessaloniki in 2008. [Biography updated on: 22/1/2020]