The fragmentary, stylised and abstract human figure, with references to Constantin Brancusi’s style, or more frequently, Hans Arp, is at the centre of Kyriakos Kambadakis’s sculpture.

In 1976, he began his series of torsos, mainly in wood, of which “Torso III” is one; fluid, curvilinear forms that set the light gliding across the surface, reflecting the texture of the wood and striking an ethereal effect. Meanwhile, the stillness is dispelled by a latent movement, conveyed by the twisting of the torso, the tightening of the shoulders, or the tilt of the head, which betray inner passion, or emotion, stirred by the existential angst that the artist sought to express in the majority of his works.

Giorgos Zongolopoulos worked with figurative depiction centered on the human being for a considerable period of time before moving on to completely abstract compositions. The realistic portraits he did, by and large before 1940, were succeeded by full-bodied figures with a steadily growing intensification of the simplified and schematic forms, particularly apparent in the Fifties.

The “Dance of Zalongo” was made at the beginning of the Fifties and is a study for the large white stone monument which was erected in Zalongo in 1961, in remembrance of the heroic act of the women of Souli, who, while dancing, fell down a precipice in order to avoid to get captured by the Turks. The composition aimed at the elevation of the monument so it would be visible from a great distance as well as its harmonization with the wild and imposing landscape. Its outline formed a triangle which contains four women holding each other by the hand. Rendered with exceptional austerity, these women grow gradually smaller in size and become more and more schematic, till the final one is little more than a compact volume, completely abstract. This successive development of the figures, which were erected as if they were otherworldly visions, lends the work rhythm and grandeur, while at the same time they harmoniously combine the empty with the full, an element that would particularly occupy Zongolopoulos in his later work as well.

A student of Antoine Bourdelle, Bella Raftopoulou fashioned her own style combining the doctrines received from her teacher, as well as a variety of influences taken from both traditional and contemporary sources. Her favorite subjects were human figure, for the main part, as well as animals or birds, on a more limited scale, works of large dimensions, which were carved directly into stone. Initially working in a realistic manner, her style became gradually more abstract, the figures more schematic and the compositions tectonic based on geometric and organic elements and rendered with flat curved surfaces. Furthermore, the empty space in some compositions contributes to the creation of the overall impression.

The “Couple”, one of her last works, is characteristic of this point of view. Obviously inspired by the “Kiss” by Constantin Brancusi, it is built on three roughly worked pieces of stone, which are interrupted only by the empty spaces between the legs, the body and the faces of the figures. Rendered with an especially emphatic form of schematization, the two figures create the impression of complete union, while the differentiation of the female from the male body is expressed in a completely schematic way, as the middle part is curved on one side to suggest the curve of the female body.