The image and its significance

Ilias Papailiakis was born in 1970 in Crete. He studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1990-1996) in the workshop of R. Papaspyrou. In 1998 he was awarded the prize of the Yannis and Zoe Spyropoulou Foundation and in 2013 he was nominated for the DESTE Prize. Since 2009 he has been teaching at the Department of Architecture of the University of Patras as a lecturer. He presented his work for the first time in a solo exhibition in 1997, followed by a large series of exhibitions, including a retrospective organized in 2001 by the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, while in the same year he represented, together with N. Navridis and E. Chatziargyrou at the 49th Venice Biennale. He has also participated in group exhibitions, some of which are international (Biennale of the New Mediterranean Countries, 1999, IV Biennale of Cetinje, Montenegro 2002, Breakthrough!, ARCO, Madrid 2004, etc.). In his work Papailiakis explores the forms of development and mythology of the image in Western culture through a coherently articulated personal discourse, structured morphologically and conceptually comprehensive. His work on well-known works of Western art, from which he often selects details - sometimes with the aid of the computer - brings iconography back to the fore, re-exposing its symbolism in the present and commenting on the power of its authoritative discourse. The carefully planned deconstruction of these images raises questions of representation first and foremost, but also of historical actualization.