An interest in contemporary art is part of the DNA of the G & A Mamidakis Foundation.
Indeed, it was essentially created out of a love of art and a deep desire to promote and protect freedom of artistic expression. G. & A. Mamidakis Foundation focusing on culture opens the summer season with a new art project which is to be held annually.
Inspired by the Cretan sea and specifically the Mirabello gulf in Agios Nikolaos, where Minos Beach art hotel, member of bluegr Hotels & Resorts, is located, the project builds on a series of artistic collaborations and in-situ works the foundation has instituted since the 1980s. One artist will be invited each year to create a work revolving around the sea and made specifically for the hotel and its grounds. The artist invited for 2016 is Costas Ioannidis, and the curator is Katerina Gregos.
The project of Mr. Ioannidis is called SEA TO SHORE STORIES and constitutes a modular work whose parts will be visible at various spots around the hotel, establishing a ‘path’. The reception area, the beach and other sites of the hotel’s grounds will be featuring the works Lost Ears of Paleopolis, Everlasting Song and Hanging Gardens.
The core idea and the thread that runs through the individual works of the project is the love of the simple yet crucial things in life: the love of nature’s beauty; the love of the sea, of reading a book in a summer afternoon; the love of creating something special, like a garden, and toiling daily to look after it and preserve its beauty. It is about the power of eternal, indomitable love as it is sung by poets; about the power of love of which Oscar Wilde speaks in his fairy tale The Fisherman and His Soul. The beauty of the place and the text of Oscar Wilde provide the inspiration and the material for the works.
Kostas Ioannidis studied painting and printmaking at the Fine Art school of Athens and the Royal College of Arts in London. He received an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York.
