Exhibition

POOL LIFE AND OTHER MEMORIES. Recent paintings by Alex Manolatos

3 Feb 2023 – 9 Feb 2023

Regular hours

Fri, 03 Feb
10:00 – 17:00
Sat, 04 Feb
10:00 – 17:00
Mon, 06 Feb
10:00 – 17:00
Tue, 07 Feb
10:00 – 20:00
Wed, 08 Feb
10:00 – 17:00
Thu, 09 Feb
10:00 – 17:00

Free admission

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Olympia Auctions

London
England, United Kingdom

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  • Barons Court
  • kensington olympia
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Alex Manolatos is a keen observer of human behaviour, whose swimming routine has inspired him to paint disparate people gathered in this unique environment of a swimming pool, hinting playfully at their self-consciousness and fleeting interactions.

About

A Selling Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Alex Manolatos

3rd - 9th FEBRUARY 2023

In the Greco-Roman world, bathing was a communal activity, and it seems apt that this pastime recently became the focus of attention of London-based artist Alex Manolatos, himself of Greek origin.  

The pool water is like the sea around the Greek islands where Manolatos was born; we are tempted to dive in.  Its luxuriant colour conjures a Southern European atmosphere, but the figures are mysterious.  There seems to be a hidden psychological interaction between some of them that touches a nerve. 

All members of society are captured in this public place, their outward apparel removed, sophisticated trappings gone. The artist is a natural ‘empath’ and conveys his compassion for some of these figures, who are facing the reality of their own naked selves.

Awkward and isolated figures evoke the influences of Francis Bacon and moreover, in a pool setting, that of David Hockney. Although lost in their own world, many of Manolatos’ picture-filling figures convey humility and acceptance.

Such works also counteract the ever-increasing pressure to present a perfect ‘image’ on social media. As with Instagram images, Manolatos’s works are square, but the similarity ends there.  The artist is not interested in superficial ‘beauty’ but with the truth of human vulnerability; what lies beneath.

Finding truth in human behaviour is pursued in all his works.  Alongside pictures of Pool Life, are paintings and drawings inspired by the artist’s own ‘Memories’, the second part of the exhibition title.  Manolatos’ sensitive nature picked up on the erosion of familial relationships during his childhood, and the paintings are like instant kodak photographs of objects or scenes retrieved from memory and cast with looming shadows of unease.  As he says ‘children are much cleverer than we think.’  See ‘Moving’, pictured below.

Manolatos studied for three years at the Architectural Association followed by another three at the City and Guilds School Art, until 1986. He then worked on the vaulted ceiling murals of Lambeth Chapel under Leonard Rosoman RA but thereafter stopped painting completely, pursuing a career in graphic design and co-running a dealership in Indian and Islamic Arts. 

As Wordsworth wrote, ‘The Child is father of the Man’; the artist’s childhood experience of trying to understand how and why people behave in certain environments has helped to shape the artist as an adult and encouraged his return to painting in 2010.  Picking up his brush again, Manolatos found himself exhibiting immediately, more recently with a solo show at the Chelsea Arts Club, showing paintings of inmates from Pentonville Prison who took part in a book club that he ran.  Here the environment is edgy - the figures stripped of their freedom rather than just their outward apparel to swim.  Again, there are implications that the viewer might have missed something and needs to find out what is really going on.

Manolatos has sold to private collectors mostly in Britain, but also in America, Greece and the rest of Europe.  

See:  https://www.alexmanolatos.com/

Prices range from £500 - £3,000. 

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