ROMA GALLERY

Pavlos (Dionysopoulos), was born in Philiatra in the Peloponnese in 1930. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1949-1953) under his teacher Yiannis Moralis. In 1954 he went to Paris with a scholarship from the French state. From 1955-1958 he worked in Athens in advertising and for the theater until he left again for Paris where he settled permanently and began creating works made only with pieces of poster paper. In 1960 he met and developed a relationship with famed art critic Pierre Restany. Even though his artistic explorations resemble those of the Nouveaux Realistes, the Pop art artists and the movement of a return to reality, he never really incorporated into any of those movements. Pavlos is a Greek artist, mostly recognized for replacing canvas and colors with constructions and installations which have a base of thin bands from machine cut poster paper. In this manner they become three-dimensional, modern “nature-mortes”. Pavlos repeatedly used this technique and believed that fragmented posters presented in profile offer a more powerful expressive element. During the period of time he spent in Paris, he met and formed friendships with artists such as Calder, Giacometti and Dubuffet, something that undoubtedly influenced him. There is a perennial dialogue in his work regarding the expression of space, three dimensionality, textures and industrial mediums.