Ήρωες

000444 Nikos Yialouris, Heroes, 1991, mixed media on paper, 70 × 99.5 cm

Displaying several similarities to work 000340, this composition adopts a similar ideological, symbolic, and aesthetic framework. Dated to the early 1990s, the painting is a typical example of Yialouris’s mature, surrealist style, which draws inspiration from antiquity, myth, theater, and European modernism, yet adopts a personal idiom aligned with the artist’s own worldview. The three scarecrows—bodiless figures made only of wooden supports and multicoloured rags—stand side by side, evoking gods or warriors of a bygone era. The artist’s main medium is black ink, applied with a reed pen. Bright reds and blues, along with small touches of brown and green, are laid down in rough brushstrokes to suggest clothing and reinforce the expressionist character of the work. There is no defined space; the white of the paper serves as the background. The final result resembles a lament for what has been lost and now survives only as an “empty shell”.