Memories of a summer day
Renowned Greek artist Achilleas Droungas takes visitors on a journey through an island summer day, with five stunning paintings prominently displayed in the lobby of the Elysium Hotel.
The first thing that catches one’s eye when gazing upon Achilleas Droungas’ hyper realistic paintings is the amount of intricate detail that makes every object appear to leap out from the canvas. Such is the case with his new series, ‘Memories of a Summer Day.’ The series of five oil on canvas works is called thus for its depiction of every stage of a holidaymaker’s day, starting at sunrise, followed by morning, afternoon, sunset, and ending with a moonlit night, all with a view of the same, unchanging horizon of the Mediterranean Sea.
Droungas’ paintings are characterized by their minimalism and subdued, restrained movement, yet at the same time appear to be bursting with life. He attributes this to the way he captures the movement of light, which he also credits as his main source of inspiration.
“I was always inspired by the fierce brightness of art found in Greece, Cyprus, and other Mediterranean countries. The brilliance of the sunlight we experience in Greece, and even more so in Cyprus, permeates peoples’ psyche, and this is reflected in the art we produce.”
‘Memories of a Summer Day,’ with its brilliant hues, pops against the subtle beige tones of the Elysium lobby. With each painting a snapshot, guests will be reminded of their own cherished memories of island holidays.
Achilleas Droungas was born in 1940 in Piraeus. He studied printmaking and stage scenography at the Athens School of Fine Arts. He continued his studies in graphic design at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, and followed this up with a lithography course at the Tamarind Institute at the University of New Mexico. He has presented many solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad and participated in numerous group exhibitions and international printmaking festivals in Greece, Europe and the U.S.A.
In 2009, a retrospective exhibition of 140 of his painting and printmaking works was displayed at the Athens National Art Gallery.