OPTASIA

A palimpsest of forms and emotions

OPTASIA is the new body of work by Giuliano Bekor, the internationally acclaimed photographer, perpetually in love with Greece and Greek culture. On show for the first time, the collection is part of the Life Art Festival 2018 in Greece and an ideal opportunity for the photographer to create artworks inspired by emblematic ancient treasures: Cycladic art, Black-figured and Geometric amphorae, Classical sculpture and Hellenistic mosaics.

Los Angeles and New York based, Giuliano Bekor, a veteran in fashion and celebrity photography, has long been passionate with the same beauty that inspired Ancient Greek art: that of the human figure. In his artistic works, he creates large-scale photographs where he envelops his models in a second skin made of art inspired forms, which go beyond the aesthetics of the image by challenging omnipresent issues such as the masculine and the heroic. The figures – masterly composed, without any digital manipulation, and dramati- cally lit against dark backgrounds - are hence given a highly painterly quality.

In OPTASIA, the naked female body becomes the canvas on which the artist creates his own idiosyncratic archeology: a palimpsest of forms and emotions, at times dark and other times luminous, like human history and life itself. The outcome of pairing Ancient Greek motifs with the naked bodies, especially through the prism of a crosscultural body adornment tradition, is a transcend- ing vision of imaginary goddesses. OPTASIA is indeed a beautiful vision.