Dimitris Tzamouranis
Dimitris Tzamouranis was born in Kalamata in 1967. He studied painting at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and continued his studies at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since 1990, he has had over 30 solo exhibitions in galleries and museums across Europe. A retrospective of his work was held at the Frissiras Museum in Athens and the Kunsthalle Osnabrück in 2013. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and international events. In 2017, he participated in documenta 14 in Kassel. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 1990.
In Greek mythology, Persephone is the daughter of the harvest goddess Demeter. When she is abducted by Hades into the underworld, Demeter sinks into deep grief and deprives the earth of its fertility – a symbol of separation, loss, and stagnation. Only when Persephone is allowed to partially return to her mother does life return to Earth. The myth refers to the eternal cycle of the seasons: the fertility and warmth of spring and summer are followed by the drought and darkness of autumn and winter – times of absence, but also of anticipation.
Tzamouranis takes up this cyclical idea in his contribution to the createPeace initiative: In a tender, almost timeless scene, he shows Demeter lovingly holding Persephone in the water in her arms – represented in the form of his own wife and daughter. The motif not only refers to the mythological mother-daughter relationship, but also points to a universal experience: the cycle of separation and reunion, loss and hope.
The figurative embrace becomes a metaphor for an inner peace that comes not through repression, but through the acceptance of change, finiteness, and return. Peace appears here not as a state, but as a process – in the cyclical nature of life itself.
„Demeter and Persephone“, oil on wood (100x70cm)