Four Paintings marks the fourth exhibition of Yiannis Maniatakos, the first outside of Greece, and coincides with the creation of his Estate that is comprised of paintings, sculptures, photography and a boat.

Born in 1935 in the Mani area of the Peloponnese, Maniatakos later established himself and spent the rest of his life with his family on the Cycladic island of Tinos, a place associated with the diversity of the building stone its inhabitants have been extracting for centuries: marble.

A sculptor by birth, Maniatakos taught and directed the historical and still presently active school of marble artisans and sculptors located at the hill-protected village of Pyrgos, the birthplace of modern masters Yiannoulis Halepas and Nikiforos Lytras, among others who were sent on a scholarship set up in the 19th century by the local church to study at the Fine Art Academy of Munich.

Alongside his teaching, that occupied him the most, he worked in the studio making sculptures and whenever time allowed, he sailed around the Aegean on his handmade boat.

His biggest and truest passion was the sea.

Inventor and fearless diver, Maniatakos came up with a practise unknown to the world:

he dove underwater and while spending time there, applied oil paint on canvas in an effort to depict the unknown.

He only painted the sea and its bed.

He went ‘down’ several times in order to complete a painting, staying there for approximately 3 to 5 hours. Using a home-made breathing mechanism, before the ones scuba diving introduced, keeping himself standing with weights attached to his ankles, the canvas would float while attached to fishing weights; the sea was his real easel.

Sometimes a painting took five dives to be complete.

Someone, most often a family member, was waiting for him on the boat.

He had created a special concoction, its exact ingredients unknown to us, to create what conservators who study him call a hydrophobic canvas; aka waterproof.

Mixture was then applied on the surface, followed by the oil paint, an agent that does not mix with water, which was then applied with a spatula .

The painting was then washed with fresh water, dried, and carried back down onto the bed of the sea, in order to be developed and completed.

Perpetually and like this, he left behind about a hundred works.

The four works shown here come from different times and were made in different locations.

Other than their formation, what strikes the eye is the colour blue.

So many variations of one colour in a painting: navy, ultramarine, savoy, lapis, Klein, Prussian and Egyptian blues alongside turquoise and palace baby ones. When Maniatakos was painting maybe he did not know all their names but the eye could see them, and his genius made them.

The light is different in each work and one stands wondering what was going on around them when they were made: what kind of fish were swimming, what was the weather like, how did the sea sound, what was he thinking, was he cold, was he afraid? The questions are endless. The answers, possibly, too.

This silent performance and its results are exhibited here.

We are honoured to be presenting four works of Yiannis Maniatakos for the first time in the gallery’s space in London.

This exhibition will last all summer.