Statement from Christos Palios:

Isolation Games 

"At the dawn of 2020, universal freedoms were renegotiated as the world receded into quarantine. Lifestyles were fraught with apprehension surrounding social implications of an unapologetic threat among our collective future. We promptly discovered detachment drastically shifts routine and tests psychology. Humanity's fragile inter-connectedness amid a surreal stillness became a germane allegory of solidarity and perseverance in an uncertain world.

With natural light befitting mood, each tabletop represents distraction and amusement, a need seemingly amplified in a skewed world. As pastimes rooted in tradition, like mythology and literature, games are cultural agents for human experience—the zeitgeist of societies. While passing the time at home during isolation, on an old coffee table where memories abound, games cultivated safety, intimacy, and warmth among limited human presence.

As serendipitous surrogates to customary social interactions, these moments hearkened back to a seemingly lost tradition, to nostalgic times from which I've reassessed valued relationships and my habitual approach to daily life. I grew intrigued by items, surface textures, and backgrounds encompassing an adjusted at-home mindset, a meditative glimpse of indirect portraiture. Reflecting upon and freshly embracing what essentially matters in this paused, ambiguous arc of time, has suddenly come into sharp[er] focus. "

Christos Palios Bio:
Christos J. Palios is a first-generation Greek-American fine-artist whose perspectives were shaped in-part from two disparate and fascinating cultures. The artist's practice is born from a wellspring of insatiable curiosity among themes of memory, connection, and identity, consummated by intimate examinations of history, architecture, and socioeconomics. We live in increasingly frenetic societies broadcasting endless stimuli, inundating our waking lives and shaping our beliefs in an exponentially-hijacked 21st-century mindset. This endless tangle of information often obliges us to sift through and discern truth from fiction, tasteful vs. boilerplate. Photography can serve as a maintainer of history, of culture, and as a powerful visual medium, it allows for conveyance of deeper meaning and personal narrative.

Employing multifaceted approaches rooted in research and intrigued by metaphorical and physical space, the artist's photographs evoke cogent, palpable awareness through distinct narratives and cohesive aesthetics. Whether capturing Dutch Golden Age-inspired contemporary still life or recording distinguished historic interiors bathed in majestic opulence, Christos' intrigue galvanizes his ambition to perpetually explore new terrain in a increasingly dynamic world. These stories are drawn from social-cultural values relevant to the artist’s perspectives and our contemporary zeitgeist.  Photographs become history the moment shutters return, yet as long as time allows, they persist as testaments to life's elusive ephemerality. With a sense of nostalgia, one can ponder their future purpose and evolution as keepers of time.  

Christos resides in the American Northeast. His springboard originates in the visual arts with a BFA from the University of Maryland. The artist's work has been recognized by a diversity of awards, publications, and exhibitions. His photographs can be found in private and corporate collections throughout the nation and abroad.