Costakis the Painter

Life among art and friendship with many artists naturally led to the fact that George Costakis himself took up a brush and paints. He sometimes accompanied Anatoly Zverev to his plein airs and often made fluent graphic sketches. Painting in the full sense of the word Costakis only took up when already in exile. The first paintings appeared in Rome, where the family moved from Moscow in 1977: the images of Roman pines at the Pineta Sachetti park became a kind of art therapy during a difficult parting with the homeland. After moving to Greece, Greek landscapes appeared, as well as nostalgic Russian motives.

In addition to landscapes, there were also canvases full of happy or bitter memories (Russia, Easter, GULAG. Kotlas). A number of paintings with geometric motifs represented a kind of visual reflections on the fate of the Russian avant-garde ("Avant-garde Cemetery", "Malevich's Grave").