The necessity of art with Konstantino Dregos
We sit excitedly in the morning circle and watch out of the corner of our eyes as adhesive foil with a blackboard-like surface is attached to the glass walls of the Ephra floor. Are we having lessons today? Like at school? No, not quite.
It’s a sunny, almost hot Wednesday and today the artist Konstantino Dregos is visiting us. He has brought books with him, in which various works of art by him are illustrated, and chalk. We still can’t quite shake off the feeling of lessons. As Konstantino tells us more about himself, his life and his art, we quickly realise that today will be a lot about thinking, but also about feeling and about things that are difficult to put into words.
Konstantino’s path to art is a very special one. Many years ago, he was innocently arrested for theft and sent to prison for nine months. There, alongside his own thoughts and feelings, pen and paper were his faithful companions. He never learnt art. For him, art is unavoidable – something that pops up very suddenly as a feeling and has to be immediately translated into a work of art. Konstantino’s artworks are mostly large-format canvases on which he paints and draws abstract shapes with various pens, chalks or brushes. It can happen that he neither sleeps nor eats for three, sometimes even five days. It then has to be as quiet as a mouse. If his neighbours are too loud, he can get very angry, he tells us with a smile. When he's finished with a picture doesn't follow a logical rule, but rather a feeling. However, he can’t put this feeling into words. He then packs the finished picture under his bed or in a large box. He doesn’t want to look at it again for the time being. Thoughtfully, we ask whether he also enjoys art, to which he answers a clear “No”: “Skateboarding is fun, art is a necessity for me.”
Phew, after so much thinking about art, we need a break and let all our energy run free. We do the exact opposite of what Konstantino needs to make art: be uninhibitedly loud!
After that, we want to understand what feeling motivates Konstantino to make art. Can we feel it too? To get closer to this feeling, let’s do a little exercise. Without pausing, we all say the word tree at the same time:
Tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree, tree…
During the exercise, we realise that this word loses its meaning when it is constantly repeated. The word that we actually use in our everyday language suddenly sounds strange and strange. The tree is no longer just a tree, but a series of individual sounds and noises. The word tree has dissolved.
Next, we all draw the exact tree on the board that we think of when we imagine the word tree. It quickly becomes obvious that our trees all look very different. Some trees have a pronounced root system, others have a huge crown or a straight trunk, while others have many branching branches. No two trees are the same. We find it very exciting to see and recognise these differences. Konstantino asks us whether the trees we have drawn on the board look exactly like the ones we had in our minds. We also realise that none of the different trees on the board look like the trees we know from outside. Konstantino explains to us that a painting is always a composition of memories and interpretation of something real and a feeling. Konstantino’s art is created according to a similar principle. His abstract paintings are always the expression of his own memories and his own interpretation of what he has seen and felt. What is depicted has its own language that nobody else can translate, but only interpret. Little by little, we paint the whole panel with Konstantino. In doing so, we are guided only by the popping up that he talked about at the beginning. One child says: “Abstract painting is fun! I paint what I feel, not like when I write, where I always have to think. Here I don't have to think at all.” At the end, we are amazed at what a great work of art we have created together with Konstantino. We realise that we have really thought, felt and talked a lot in the last few hours. Nevertheless, it was very different from school. “It’s interesting not to make art for a change, but just to talk about it. I've never done it like this before”, says one of us, summarising the last few lessons – and the rest of us can only agree.
