Filippos Telesto creates visually arresting paintings that dissect postmodernist ideas exploring the concepts of the primordial while serving as a hybrid space between the past and future. He employs the use of 3D shapes, forms, colour shading, optical illusion, and humour as devices to articulate a cross-cultural dialogue that aims to expand on the notions of duality, repetition, and cosmology. Landscapes, portraits, vases, and geometric shapes that have constituted basic structures and attempts towards the abstract are traditional archetypes that Filippos Telesto seeks to contend with in his practice. He creates works that coerce the viewer into asking deeper questions about the world around us, often in the guise of utilitarian objects, such as a vase. Moreover, Filippos Telesto wants to invite the viewer to take an active approach to looking at art, as what you see may not always be what you get.

Upon examining Filippos Telesto’s work, the viewer can’t help but be enamoured with the artist’s skilful and playful juxtaposition of visual and cultural iconography, and his satirical fervour. Filippos Telesto has created a series of paintings that include upended ancient Greek vases shooting up into the sky like a rocket ship as seen in Vase in Space, 2019. This visual gesture within the work alludes to the iconic Afrofuturist science-fiction film by Sun Ra entitled Space is the Place. Vase in Space, 2019, also employs the use of anaglyph images sourced from pop culture, juxtaposed with 3D geometrical shapes to create a psychedelic optical experience for his viewer. Moreover, there are deeper questions about our contemporary world that Telesto seeks to investigate. Filippos Telesto invites the questions: Do we still carry those dated ideas in our contemporary societies like a vase carries its rotten insides? Is today structured on yesterday’s mistakes? By using universal images and signifiers as an entry point to this discourse, Filippos Telesto utilises these devices in his practice, often with a reversal of context, to create new interpretations and perceptions of these oftentimes familiar objects, such as a vase, and imbue them with dynamic meaning.

Vase in Space, 2019
Ink on canvas, 190 x 3 x 236 cm
Courtesy of Allouche Benias Gallery

Vase in Space, 2019
Ink on canvas, 190 x 3 x 236 cm
Courtesy of Allouche Benias Gallery