Urban night scenes
Leonard Cohen’s ballad «Ain’t No Cure for Love» is the inspiration behind the latest work by Marie Perrakis, which is currently being presented in the artist’s one-woman show at the Aigokeros Gallery. «Ain’t No Cure for Love,» which is also the title of the show, includes around 20 large oil paintings showing urban night scenes, mostly high-rise buildings that remind one of New York City (Perrakis spent a couple of years in Manhattan). Presented as a series, the works suggest a lonely, nighttime promenade through a fictional city in search of companionship – and for the lost love that Cohen’s song speaks of. Perrakis captures the anonymity and loneliness of urban life as well as the growing need for emotional fulfillment. In several of the paintings, the artist has used tiny lightbulbs instead of color to suggest the light that comes from apartment buildings. Perrakis has also used mixed-media techniques before in her work but is mainly a painter. She studied macroeconomics and specialized in statistics but later entered the Athens School of Fine Arts where she studied painting and took courses in photography, sculpture, set design and mosaics. Her solo exhibition at the Aigokeros Gallery shows the artist’s interest in exploring different themes and putting across a different mood each time. Paintings by Marie Perrakis at the Aigokeros art gallery (45 Xenocratous, Kolonaki, tel 210.722.3897) through November 22. Open Monday-Friday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Wednesday and Saturday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
