THESSALONIKI .- Kalfayan Galleries presents the solo exhibition of Antonis Donef, titled "Time's Witness". The opening of the exhibition will take place on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, from 19:00 to 21:00. The text accompanying the exhibition is written by Panos Giannikopoulos (Curator Art Historian).
In his fifth exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries, Antonis Donef declares himself a Time's Witness", transforming the gallery space into a "library of time" where anything can happen, and all interpretations are possible. His work is both a renegotiation of knowledge and time. Remaining true to the fundamental elements of his techniqueinterventions on pages where knowledge is gathered (archival printed materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, etc.) and the organic development of the design with ink in the form of automatic writingAntonis Donef adds more color to his new works in an effort, as he states, "to capture an even larger piece of time with his painting."Labyrinthine iconography, calligraphic design, humor, the conscious and the unconscious, the visible and the invisible, memory, knowledge, and imagination coexist harmoniously in the multi-layered painting surfaces of Antonis Donef, which act as "open books."
*A monumental size diptych of Antonis Donef will be presented in June at Unlimited (cur. Giovanni Carmine, Director of Kunst Halle St. Gallen) as part of the participation of Kalfayan Galleries at Art Basel.
Antonis Donef was born in 1978. He lives and works in Athens. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and the University of Fine Arts in Madrid. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Greece and abroad, UNLIMITED (cur. Giovanni Carmine), Art Basel 2025; MERIDIANS, Art Basel Miami 2024; Parallel Viewing. Works from the Collection of the Bank of Greece (cur. Charis Kanellopoulou), B&M Theocharakis Foundation; Anaparastasi: Reconstruction, Reenactment, Reconstitution, International Film Festival of Thessaloniki; AMETRIA (Curated by: Nicoletta De Rosa, Alessandro Pasini, Tomaso Piantini, Polina Kosmadaki, Yorgos Tzirtzilakis), Organised by DESTE | Now and Then, European Central Bank, Frankfurt |Hell As Pavilion (curated by Nadia Argyropoulou), Palais de Tokyo, Paris et al. In 2005 he was one of the six graduates of the School of Fine Arts to receive an award in the framework of the A Great Moment for Culture: The Presentation of New Creators Eurobank Private Banking. In 2010 he was honored with the Art House Shanghai Award, Ailing Foundation (ArteFiera Bologna, Kalfayan Galleries), accompanied with an artist residency in Shanghai. In the same year he was a finalist for the "AUDI Award" for his solo exhibition in New Positions section as part of the Kalfayan Galleries' participation at Art Cologne. Works by Antonis Donef are in distinguished collections in Greece and abroad.