Grey, grey, grey is the colour of the day, 2009 – 2011

Exhibition 'Body Memory', 29.3.-3.5.2014
Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Centre
Photo by Eleni Stergiou
Text by Syrago Tsiara
www.cact.gr

Is trauma colourful?
Panos Balomenos proposes grey as the appropriate colour for revisiting the traumatic memory, difficult to grasp and represent: the trauma caused by any form of violence and power exercised upon working people, whether it is a sexual, mental or psychological one. The artist deploys a realistic language in order to narrate extreme and shocking scenes. Both men and women, dressed in grey elegant office suits, collapse due to the pressure they experience, are lead to prostitution so that they satisfy their superiors’ desires, or even display triumphantly their ‘hole cards’, in a sarcastic allegory of everyday violence that is not so often denounced.

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'A grey view', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey romanticism', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey collapse I', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey collapse II', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey panic', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey lover', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey waterfalls', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey volumes', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Three important greys', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Three Luxembourgian greys', 2011. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 61 x 45,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey in your eyes', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey breath', 2011. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey covering', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey begging', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Grey news', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey revenge', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 61 x 45,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Oh yeah I', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Oh yeah II', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 61 x 45,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'Oh yeah III', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey dwelling I', 2009. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 51 x 35,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey dwelling II', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 61 x 45,5 cm. Photo Julia Weckman
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'A grey dwelling III', 2010. Watercolours and pencil on paper. 45,5 x 61 cm. Photo Julia Weckman