SILENT NATURE

This work is unique in its approach to still life painting;

For the first time, the viewer is able to see the original source of inspiration [groups of carefully chosen and arranged objects] alongside the inspired painting

By revealing the original source of inspiration, Kotsiréas lays bare elements of the creative process that are usually confined to the artist’s studio

This invites the viewer to explore both the essence and mystery of the objects in the original still life arrangement and the creative process leading to their expression as a still life painting.


This deeply reflective work by the artist Stavros Kotsireas marks a return to the artist’s origins as a painter and the intensity and rigour of his early still life classes at the Royal Academy in The Hague, The Netherlands. In this work, the artist makes a conscious return to the origins of still life, and the easel pictures on wood of his ancestors, the ancient Greeks.

This intense exploration of the past has caused Kotsiréas to challenge the ephemeral nature of the source of inspiration for the still life painting. The Greek for still life is ‘necri physi,’ the literal translation of which is dead nature; in the Italian ‘natura morta’. However, for Kotsiréas, when the source of inspiration, those carefully chosen and arranged inanimate objects, is retained and bound together with the inspired painting, it breathes life back into the work.

This approach to still life also challenges the notion that there is a hierarchy of value between the painting and subject matter. By juxtaposing subject and painting, the real value and life force of the work is revealed, as the space between the two ….. the creative process.

D.A. Hussey B.A. Hons., B.Sc. Hons. - Art Historian