Paradise Lost

1991
Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand
CSA Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand

Kon Dimopoulos’s series of gridded works …..seem like a newsroom wall covered by a series of TV sets, with each one flickering out its message of tragedy and gloom.
Quickly sketched profile, hand, gun, car mirror, aeroplane, a table, teapot, dog and a book, in smudged and maoldorous colours of blue/purple and red/purple blacks, convey well intentions implicit in titles such as ‘killers outside the kingdom’ and  ’the dead trees give no shelter’.
Dimopoulos’s attempt to put some logic and sanity into irrational acts of violence is both bold and TV referent. But his stream of consciousness, or rather stream of fear serves to remind why people turn to Matisse, or “art for art’s sake” for light relief.
Half remembered nightmare visions of reality which edge into perfectly valid social comment, are hard for some to accommodate.
Reviewed by Pat Unger
The Christchurch Press