Bouquet, 1975

Yannis Parmakelis, cognizant of both the Greek sculptural tradition and modern trends, draws on both the past and the present for the creation of his own personal style. The human figure is what has always stirred his interest, rendered at first with realistic severity and then as an echo of the style of Henry Moore. Subsequently broadening his thematic field and introducing a drastic change in style, he has gradually turned to geometric abstraction and constructivist renderings.

“Bouquet” belongs to a period during which his forms, taken from the organic world, composed an important part of his works and is directly related to his previous work, since it belongs to the series “May Day ‘76”. This series is a continuation of “Martyrs and Victims” from the period 1969-1974, through which Parmakelis expressed his political speculation with a strongly critical eye, lifting his own artistic voice in protest over the seven years of the Greek dictatorship. “May Day ‘76”, a series with fruit-bowls full of fruit and featuring an emphatic realism, with roughly moulded May Day wreathes and bouquets of flowers formed of small spherical volumes more or less schematic, is like both a continuation and a crowning point created in order to retain in memory the sacrifice made, as well as to express, through the symbolism of those still lifes of abundance and rebirth of nature, the triumph of life.