Christos Damianos
Humanity has long sought to record the passage of time and the feeling of its transience. "Time Well Spent"(2024) engages with fibre-based processes not to kill time, but to explore and mark its expiration. This is not the first time Christos Damianos has worked with and exhibited fibre-based work. His last solo exhibition, "Skins" (2023), featured a dozen works on or using handmade paper to create abstract and figurative forms.
The works included in "Time Well Spent" represent ongoing experimentation with fibre cellulose and handmade processes. These labor-intensive pieces embody the rich creative history of their maker. Damianos measures time's passage through the accumulation and transformation of his media as well as his approach in studio practice. The artist, whose father was a small-town shoemaker, works with materials such as beeswax, leather, paper, and wood, along with traditional art materials. In this exhibition, he incorporates both new materials and recycled or torn older pieces on paper to create works where the residue of the original can be discerned. While some of the formed paper pieces are thin and translucent, many are made of layers several centimeters thick.
The exhibition also addresses themes of impermanence and the fragility of life, witnessed by recording key lingering moments as they pass. The material's own materiality is evident in every work, reflecting how memories warp over time and eventually retreat into nothingness, much like cellulose fibres that are somewhat insignificant on their own but crucial components in the chain forming the final product.
The Greek-born Canadian artist creates a quantifiable history, measuring time like geological layers. One cannot help but contemplate the hours Christos must have spent collecting and forming each stratum. The works in "Time Well Spent" do not focus on time wasted but rather on time well spent, with each piece referencing life cycles and processes that extend beyond it.
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