Notes from Crete

The title carries a deliberate double meaning. These are notes as in written annotations, fragments rather than finished statements. And notes as in musical ones: pitch, tone, atmosphere caught briefly and then let go. Like marginalia in a travel guide, they do not try to be complete.

The base was Stalida, a coastal resort with shallow water, open-air restaurants, and souvenir shops selling goods that probably weren't made on the island at all. Modern Crete sits inside a contradiction that is hard to look away from: an island negotiating constantly between what it has always been and what tourism needs it to perform. Abandoned construction projects along the coastline. Mountain villages emptying out as younger generations leave. The famous windmills of the Lasithi Plateau mostly gone, a taverna owner shrugging when shown an old photograph: that was before, like twenty years ago.

It is within that tension, between the genuine and the performed, the ancient and the commercial, that the paintings were made.

The works in Notes from Crete were painted on pink paper. The pink functions not merely as a support but as a chromatic presence that inflects every colour laid over it, softening contrasts and giving the whole series a warmth that is not quite nostalgic and not quite critical. Finishing varnish darkened the areas where the paper was less covered by paint; epoxy reached the back where the edges were loose, leaving dark stains. These were not mistakes. The materials added imperfection and authenticity, qualities the subject matter seemed to demand. The matted epoxy finish preserves the images while making them slightly less sharp, as if memory itself has had a hand in the process.