The “Breath and Light” by Stephanos Zannis, in Patmos
An exhibition that perceives painting as an act of breathing and light, as a symbiosis with the material of the landscape and the present. In the end, what remains is not the subject but the sensation: the breath that permeates and the light that animates.
The exhibition “Breath and Light” by Stephanos Zannis is presented from 2 to 10 August 2025 at the historic Stavrakas House, under the auspices of Patmian Culture, offering a silent but dynamic deposition of the gaze on the painting surface. Stefanos Zannis, a painter born in Athens, studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts with Professor Ilias Dekoulakos and printmaking with Thanasis Exarchopoulos. His artistic career is characterized by two main axes: the elaboration of the relationship between painting and text, based on Homer’s Odyssey, since 1992, and the development of independent series of works with a similar depth of subject matter.
From August 2021, Zannis chooses a way of working that takes him exclusively outdoors: city streets, squares, beaches, beaches, hills, even the top of Lycabettus. There, under the Greek light, his painting becomes an experiential reaction to the environment, to the accidental, to the sudden. Thus, in the Patmos exhibition, the artist’s relationship with the environment functions as a central axis. The works were not created in the studio, they were created on the spot, with light, temperature and wind shaping the form and atmosphere. In both the landscape paintings and the human scenes, the approach is simple, unadorned, unostentatious. The painter speaks of a “silent and active deposition of the gaze” on the surface of the paper.
As he puts it: “Painting cannot speak anyway, nor can it jump. I work with the densities and dilutions of the pulses of this two-way relationship – of objects with each other and of me with them.” It is in this sense of unification of spirit and environment that the meaning of the works in the exhibition rests.
The Stavrika house, on the north side of Hora and just below the walls of the monastery, is the ideal setting. Its architecture bears witness to the patrician tradition, while its location next to the castle church of St. John the Theologian underlines the connection between art and history in the area. The exhibition opens its doors with an opening on Saturday 2 August at 19:30, while opening hours are daily 10:30-13:30 and 19:30-22:00. Admission is free to the public.
