Part III

Hints, connections, recreated impressions of childhood and adolescent memories, memories held in thrall by the atmosphere of the plain of Thessaly. Dreams and journeys which this hyper-sensitive artist engaged in, through his imagination, first to alleviate the loss of his parents, and then to forget the brutality (which he saw and sensed) of the occupiers, and of his fellow countrymen. Images which, in their entirety, constitute the other side of the coin, in comparison with the dramatic forms of his previous post-representational period.

At one time, Christos Caras admits to us, I strove to paint tormented people with tragic expressions, Then I began to turn these paintings to the wall, because I couldn't look at them anymore... and it was in this way, more or less, that I was led to the other extreme, to decipher a memory of equal intensity through compositions which are calm and peaceful on the surface, at the opposite extreme of the other works, I believed that it was time to make an inventory in some manner of what I possessed, and to exercise a new control in substance over myself and, in consequence, my work. To call upon myself to become involved with its future orientation.

The artist's post-realist compositions were endowed with a inexpressible poetry, precisely because of this authentic and fundamental perception, a poetry orchestrated around and within all that is depicted or suggested, a poetry moulded through opposing forces and maneuvers. The peace which prevailed only on the surface is here alluded to, in agreement with an inverse analogous method, a uniquely formed intensity, This intensity is suggested through a sensual and, at the same time, immaterial human body, through a specific and simultaneously indefinite leaf, or through the smoke which overcomes pressure and escapes from somewhere, to express the quest for some form of freedom, The smoke which, like the birds, the leaves, and the flying veils, is a prelude to a freedom which is successfully captured in the ensuing phase, that of spatial poetry (1975-1985).

In this phase, which occupied the artist for ten whole years, every former pretext is brought to light. Here, it is superfluous to merely regard the objects which are specific in terms of their pattern but abstract in terms of their identity. We are speaking of the cylindrical formations and the metal sheets which can hang suspended, turn, move and fly, without astonishing you, with that characteristic freedom of connections which are suggested and enacted. Here, we experience the psychic liberation of the artist himself at this particularly revealing moment. Having surpassed the stage of his first quest, of self- criticism and the provocation connected to this, he now feels free to shape his figurative vision in the exact image of his psyche, without the pretexts and prejudices which are bound together with it.

In the case of Christos Caras, however, as we found out in the preceding period, there is no reason, in essence, to try and state analogous arguments and verifications. In the other world, - the metaphysical - objects, microscopic or macroscopic, depending on forms that we cannot comprehend, are set before us completely alive, and therein lies their dynamism. We see these texturally spatial appendages very clearly; they are connected with the products of modern technology and hang timelessly suspended in a particularly transparent and highly significant spatial field. Yet another time, a common hallmark in all of Caras's creations, shapes without any personal identity, are presented precisely and move obediently to an ideal predetermined cycle, thereby strengthening the challenge, the substratum, that the composition exercises on us.

This is a challenge that the painter daily lives with, a fluctuating intensity in all of its developments and ramifications, without compromise, pretext or superficial approaches. The special - as the painter himself calls them - constructions that he has been making the past three years, the peak and at the same time the distillation of his quest up till now, demonstrate this most convincing manner. They suggest more than what they actually establish in the space of another dimension and are, in the end, orchestrated here through a unique, bolder conception of the painterly, while at the same time they express the abilities of the painter -creator, The involvement of Christos Caras with sculpture is stronger than it seems, and this is true not only of the sculpture he made during the two main periods - the first around 1965 and the other in 1972 - which, in terms of technique, go hand in hand with the corresponding pointed compositions, but also in his painting itself, which is revealed to us through his experiments with human anatomy.