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Scholar Vassilis Vassili was invited by the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD) to participate in the 1st symposium on sculpture at the Halifax waterfront in Canada. The symposium was inaugurated in mid-October and was open to the public in front of whom the participating artists were asked to carve their works.
The project presented by the scholar was carved from a monolithic granite block weighing 9 tons. It was created on the spot and then re-located to a more central part of town, where the College has a branch. Commenting on his work, the artist noted, “The work could be named The Passage or just plain Passage, and is from a series of pieces started in 2000 in Cyprus. It is a passage through an impervious material like granite. Besides the artistic or visual quests it represents, this passage could also be based on a theoretical or even, one might say, a philosophical context. It is an attempt to find whatever Light and whatever Course is intended for me or for us. For me it was a journey of “catharsis” and a spiritual destination. It is a work created from the void of the unbroken. This void is filled with light. This void calls upon spectators to “fill” it with their body. This Void becomes a Shrine of the Soul... I hope it turns out that way.”
Vassilis Vassili was granted a scholarship by the Onassis Foundation in 1999 to complete his Master’s degree at the Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, USA. Common themes in his works are the concepts of confinement, restriction, fleeing and separation. He tries to tie ideas, emotions and shapes together, aiming to redefine the conceptual approach to works of art and get spectators thinking and pondering as they look at everyday, “innocent” objects.
