George Sfougaras

Kinesis

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EXHIBITION  CATALOGUE 

An art exhibition by George Sfougaras as part of the Shrewsbury Art Trail.

July 1st to August 31st 2023

Kinesis is the Greek word for Movement.

The word is attributed many other meanings: Agitation, convulsion, disturbance, motion,

locomotion, movement, sedition, stir, unrest, and upheaval.

Click on the images below to read about each of the exhibited works on show.

We can no more avoid change than stop the world from turning. We are creatures that manage to walk on the Earth because it is constantly spinning.  We survive because of cosmic forces that are always on the go. You could say that even if we choose to remain still, we are never at rest. Movement, Kinesis, Change, are the facts of our existence as irrefutable as life itself. 

We like security and crave stability, but alas we occupy that liminal space in the universe that exists between stability and chaos, and we know only too well that often the line between them is very thin indeed. Yet somehow, we manage; we create, we believe in love, we promise ‘for ever’. The unpredictability of human life can be a source of inspiration, but it can often transmute into fear and hate. 

I believe that people can transcend and exist in peace, both inwardly and in their relationships with others and the world. The key is knowledge and the emotional investment to understand.  Understand what? I hear you say. Well, everything. History can help, or rather the close examination of the past, and the ability to empathise. I personally think that knowledge without understanding is but half the story. Many of the works exhibited here in in my other exhibitions deal with the way history shapes the present.  Knowing that history is essential to understand that our world is in a constant state of flux, as are we.

Sadly, the very idea of change can destabilise our world view, create insecurity and even hatred. Human movement seems to cause the greatest fear that what we have will be taken away from us, that new arrivals unfamiliar with our ‘way of life’ will dilute and destroy what our ancestors have created.

Yet, human history tells us that what we have is an amalgamation, an accumulation of past achievements and setbacks on a global scale.  We have evolved from the same seed, and we are different only superficially. Our lives are shaped by our predecessors and in our relatively brief time on this earth, we help to lay the ground for the next generation to take up the mantle and continue this journey. We are essentially the custodians of a never-ending evolutionary process of change. Being agents for good is perhaps the only worthwhile endeavour, the only legacy that matters.

We are in a constant case of Kinesis, small atoms in the vastness of the cosmos, and yet to those that love us, we are everything.

George Sfougaras 2023.