Holy Icon

"Sonya Marmeladova à la Fayum", acrylic on wooden board, 2021

"This is a noble portrait, which after many centuries continues the tradition of Fayum portraits (naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt). It is characterized by an unspeakable aristocratic nobility, for which we cannot understand how it came about. This painting follows all the Byzantine lessons that the artist has in himself, but at the same time he has one ‘fabric’ of high artistic breath, one breath that can turn and speak to modern man. It is a portrait that we can say is contemporary, a portrait of the 21st century." (Stamatis Skliris)