| LIZZIE CALLIGAS FINDS 2000-2006 ORIGINAL REPRODUCTIONS Since 2000 Lizzie Calligas has been collecting from the beaches of Spetses objects that the sea washes ashore, the remains of modern culture. Fragments of mosaics, plastic, glass, etc., are a few of the objects that she separates, categorizes and then “reproduces”. With the persistence of an archaeologist she observes these trivial objects which she transfers to paper through the media of watercolor, photography and digital printing. For each one of these objects she creates more than one “reproduction” playing with minimal differences, such as, for example, different paper quality and change of scale. The watercolors and photographs provide a value to the “Findings” which they do not have by themselves. What we admire in the perfection of these reproductions is the delicacy, the precision and the ability, in other words, that which allows us to forget the difference between the “Finding” and its depiction. As a result of this process the media are entangled and the spectator is asked to differentiate them. Calligas with great finesse succeeds to convey the doubt about what we see about where the copy begins and where the original ends. Through this observation of the object Calligas seems to want to expose it, to remove from it the first apparent layer of its “appearance”. The artist contrasts the object itself with its depiction. In this way the dual relationship of seeing/looking with showing is evolved. We could say that Calligas puts us in this game of optical juxtaposition precisely because there is always something that is hidden, that is not revealed. The watercolors and photographs show what we do not see in their “original” models. Calligas pretends to reproduce the likeness of these discoveries. All these idols decrease the deviation from the original object however there is always a distance that remains between them. The viewer is invited to make sense among these intersections. The painting and photographic similarity replaces the identity of the object. Calligas teaches us that the way things look is not always as they appear. Through this penetration to the core of the object, the artist reveals to us, by this continuous peeling off, that she always remains at the surface of the image. That is why she does not hesitate to multiply the reproductions, each one revealing a different stratification. The reproductions clarify and decode the appearance of findings, releasing a conceptual flow between them. The model-finding does not look like but itself, it remains inimitable which is why its imitation is what gives the quality in these reproductions. In the end, the “Findings” resemble their reproductions and not the other way around. Christina Petrinou |