Dimitris Fragakis
He lives and works in Athens and Thessaloniki.
Dimitris Fragakis describes his work as digging and diving, and as such it defines these works not as the results of invention, but of exhumation. Digging and diving do lead to revelations, but this requires that what they reveal is already there, hidden deep within the earth and the silt of a fantastic ‘Lake’. This makes the work of art emerge from the body of water or earth as if it preexisted in its entirety before the creative act. It also implies that, as an artist, D.F. doesn’t devise, but pulls images and forms out of the depths of a larger, and possibly timeless, body of ideas and things. By definition, this act requires the absence of any trace of Ego, since it demands of the artist to listen and palpate without judgment — just like the archaeologist unearths little by little with his brush the intricate mosaic floor of an ancient palace.
Studies
2009 – 2014 School of Fine and Applied Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
2002 – 2007 BEng Mechanical Engineering, Kavala, Greece
Solo exhibitions
2018 ‘Hey Pal’, Depo Darm Gallery, Athens
2016 ‘Snapshot: The Sureness of Immobility’, Depo Darm Gallery, Athens, curator: Panagis
Koutsokostas
2015 ‘The Open Circle’, Action Field Kodra, Thessaloniki, curator: Panagis Koutsokostas
Group exhibitions
2023 ‘BESTIARY: Artefacts, Allegories, Representations’, CRUX Gallery, Athens / ‘HIC RHODUS’,ICARO Contemporary Art Gallery & Space 52, Athens
2022 ‘ELPIS – ΕΛΠΙΣ’, KYAN project space, Athens
2020 ‘Honest Outlaws’, curator: Sofia Eliza Bouratsis, Momus – Experimental Center for the Arts,Thessaloniki
2018 ‘Art Athina’, Depo Darm Gallery, Athens
2017 ‘The Vision of Saint Void’, Depo Darm Gallery, Athens, curator: Kiriakos Spirou / ‘Taking Roots’, 58th International Film Festival of Thessaloniki, curator: Orestis Andreadakis,
Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (Former Military Warehouse) / ‘Panopticon’, Depo Darm Gallery, Athens,curated by Sophia Chrysaphopoulou & Alkistis Kontopoulou / ‘Imagined Homes’ – 6th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki / ‘3rd Frissiras
Award of European Painting’, Frissiras Museum, Athens
2016 ‘Aristotelous project 2’, part: It began as a mistake, curator: Eirini Papakonstantinou, Kalfayan galleries Athens – Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki
2015 ‘TimEffect’, Depo Darm Contemporary art space, Athens / ‘Antallaxima’, Georgiadis Mansion, Mytilene, curators: Syrago Tsiara, Panagis Koutsokostas, Eleni Kriki
2014 ‘Heroes are dead, long live the heroes!’, Kodra Fresh, Macedonian Museum of ContemporaryArt, Thessaloniki, curators: Anthi Argyriou and Panagis Koutsokostas / ‘7th Bienalle of Schools of
Fine Arts in Greece’, Theocharakis Foundation, Athens
2012 ‘Transform’ (Pandora’s box), Teloglion Arts Foundation, Thessaloniki / ‘no more real than you are’, Dynamo Project Space, Thessaloniki
2011 ‘SYMBIOSIS?’, XV Bienalle di Mediteranneo, Port Warehouses, Thessaloniki, curator: Stephanie Bernard
2010 ‘2nd Unit’, Tsatsis Projects / Artforum Gallery, Thessaloniki
