Four Seasons & Three Angels

A poem’s moment of birth comes by the poem’s will
A stranger who’s been living here for a long time
In our house, it roams in the basement and bathes in the light of the attic.
It reads our manuscripts one by one,
deciphers the secret voices that journey within us,
and drinks to grow,
that’s why it’s always intoxicated.
A poem’s moment of birth comes by the poem’s will,
just as before us, it chose this house to reside in.

Tolis Nikiforou

A series of work created upon wood during the period of 2007 – 2009. Four Seasons were depicted personified, as mythical figures and fairy tale characters that emerged through wooden surfaces, as if it were doors. Each of them got to pick their own unique time to be born and emerge through doors. Before I even had a say, Spring and Summer had already chosen to reside in my fairytale-like atelier, under the sacred hill of the Acropolis in Athens. As for Autumn and Winter, they found home in the Artistic Fairy House near the sea—a handcrafted house by the sea, a fairy-woven abode resembling a ship. link

The journey of the seasons is accompanied by three angels: little Eros along with Thought, the Fallen Angel, and the Angel of Dawn. These forms bear elements reminiscent of Byzantine imagery and Fayum portraits. They were created in 2003-2004 on wooden surfaces sourced from the wardrobe of my great-grandmother, whose origins were from Smyrna…

«Knowledgeable as she was, she used to gather herbs from the forest and heal the world’s ailments with them. She could foresee the future, even with her eyes closed, and read many signs from nature all around. With her ears, she could hear distant sounds, sounds of all kind, even those that were hard for anyone else to perceive. It is said that she could reach distant places without needing to walk. Her only help? The wings of her thoughts…»

From heart to heart, anything is possible!

The Fairy Tale of the Pomegranate Tree

Zoe Nikitaki, Life Alphabet publications