Sebastian Boulter

NEWS

 

 

 

 

 December 2023

 

 

 

PAINTINGS OF ABSENT

 

6.12.2023 - 3.1.2024

Winter Garden, Tampere Hall, Tampere, Finland

 

Curator Anne Paldanius

 

 

The collection is about being an absent - of being away and having been away. There is an dreary park, a deserted house, no one is present. There are places which have once been shared, but all that remains is a faint memory of presence, or a indifferent stagnation of absent. 

 

The paintings has been done in the years 2016-2018. Back then I was living somewhat restless life, travelling from another side of Europe to another one.  I have returned to various places after some period of time when everything has turned irrevocably different. I've realised afterwards that the paintings to me describe absent of my self since I have left the places behind. 

 

It is interesting how you attach to a place, which before you've shared with someone, when the places have had a deeper meaning. On sentimental level the places have become empty, in the end even meaningless. In the state of mind even the places seem to vanish. 

 

Artist's statement
 
 
 
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October 2022

 

 

 

OF WATER

 

22.10. - 6.11.2022

Automat Space, Saarbrücken, Germany

 

Curator, Timo Poeppel

 

 

Water covers about 71% of Earth’s surface. Of all water on Earth 97% is seawater. From the rest of 3% of fresh water on Earth 77% is ice and 22% is in soil and bedrock. Only about 1% of the world's fresh water is easily usable in lakes, rivers and reservoirs: it means a minimal share of 0.036 percent of all water on Earth. Only 0.001% of our water floats in the clouds.
 
All water has always gone around in cycle. It rains, it runs in rivers, it evaporates. It also gets stuck in ground, bedrock, ice or in humans and other living species, but still it is in very slow and constant movement. And although its quantity hasn't changed that much, it does not necessarily mean it is a renewable resource because its quality has changed.
 
However, the scientists still argue about the origin of the water. In some theories the water on Earth might be older than the Earth itself. The theory relies on the claim that in the beginning the Earth was hot. Therefore it might be that the water has landed on Earth from elsewhere.
 
So, we do not really know how it has appeared here. Therefore, water in its all forms and all forms that has water remains quite a
mystery.
 
The exhibition consists of an installation of gypsum prints, video works and charcoal drawings of river Imbrasos in Samos island, Greece, which in its stark state epitomizes the state of many other rivers around the world.
 
Artist's statement
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
See the video-audio work "Of Water" on Youtube:

 

 

 

 

 

September 2022

 

 

 

VIVA LA VIDA !

 

3. - 18.9.2022

World of Tango -festival / Contemporary Art Center Pispala, Hirvitalo 

Tampere, Finland

 

Curator, Alisa Volkova

 

 

Since the late 1800's the famous rubber ducks, (nowadays made of plastic), have spread all over the world. One unexpected spreading of the ducks happened in 1992, when three 40-foot containers holding 28800 plastic bathtub toys from a Chinese factory were washed off a ship to Pacific Ocean, containing 7200 each of blue turtles, yellow ducks, red beavers, and green frogs. 

 

Two-thirds of the toys floated south and landed three months later on the shores of Indonesia, Australia, and South America. The ocean streams carried part of them to Alaska and then completed a full circle back near Japan. Many of the toys then entered the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia and were trapped in the Arctic ice. Their travel routes have provided researchers with more information about ocean currents. Viva la Vida!

 

Artist's statement

 

 

 

“As I descended into impassible rivers

I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen…” 

 

Arthur Rimbaud

 

…because we had overconsumed. We thought that by purchasing we would have become happier. We though that our standard of living would have become higher and that everything would have become more attractive. 

 

And I realized that the impassible rivers are not attractive. 

 

Extract of curators statement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 2022

 

 

 

PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS ABOUT EMPTINESS, SILENCE AND STAGNATION

 
18. - 31.7.
Viljamakasiini, Ruovesi, Finland
 
Curator, Veikko Önkki
 
 
States, both physical and mental, and the sensations they create; those that we sometimes accidentally end up with, or that we grab on the spur of the moment just to feel a momentary connection with them, can be called emptiness, silence or stagnation.
 
The charm of these phenomena lies in the insignificancy of all the rush, noise and goods to which we are so attached. But that allure can also lead us to that mystical state of connection that gives us some sense of fulfillment.
 
To understand what we are made of and with what we have filled our living environment is being one with emptiness, as well as with silence or stagnation. 
 
Artist's statement
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

March 2022

 

 

 

NORDIC MEMOIR

 

3.-20.3.2022

FokiaNou Art Space, Athens

 

Curators, Mary Cox and Panagiotis Voulgaris

 

 

I'm sitting at the end of a pier, watching the reflection of moving clouds on the calm surface of the water. I feel like the pier is moving as if I was sat on the doorstep of an open airplane door. I wave my legs above the clouds – waving to the clouds which remain in the past. 

 

Artist's statement of a reflection from his childhood

 

 

We have always been longing to here, to the lake, that is deeper than time, and which has an island where the future is hidden. 

 

Extract from a novel Kivitasku by Anni Kytömäki

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the foreground a piece related to the series I have always been longing to here:

Cloud, gypsum on glass with black paper, 2022

 

Finnish institute at Athens contributed realizing the exhibition

 

 

 

 

 

February 2022

 

 

 

TEDDY BEAR AND CLOCK - exhibition of illustration 

 

12.2. - 4.6.2022

Lapua Art Museum, Finland

 

Curators, Susanna Oversteyns and Sakari Hanhimäki

 

 
We can easily wander around the clock in 12 hours. Even a Teddy Bear can do that. On average we go through a dream gate once every 24 hours, but do we count the hours in our sleep? Music is generally thought of as a linear, time-bound period of sound. This soundscape is composed for the installation - Dream Gate - by Terhi Ekebom. The composition strives for a dreamlike state of timelessness. The basic narrative of music - the beginning, the middle part, and the end has faded away.
 
The soundscape is composed for electric guitar and electric piano. Technically the work is based on expressive dodecaphony, but its atonality is dissolved by eschewing certain rules of the system. The duration of the work is 26:46. It does not matter where you start listening to the sound or when you stop listening - according to exactly the same principle as how we dream.
 
Artist's Statement
 
 

 

 

Dream Gate

Installation by Terhi Ekebom
Soundscape by Sebastian Boulter

 

 

August 2021

 

 

 

AVANTGARDEVEKKULA: BURNING DESIRE

 

12.6. - 29.8.20212

Art Center Haihatus, Joutsa, Finland

 

Curator, Tuomo Vuoteenoma

 

 

Avantgardevekkula: Burning Desire looks at these scorching human needs through sculpture, installation, image and sound. The exhibition is composed of artists and groups who convey experience, feeling and visions of the different levels of needs, and how they affect the surroundings. They show how in some circumstances the fulfilling of needs becomes a problem, and what it might mean to actually fulfill an insatiable desire.

 

Extract of the press release by the curator

 

 

 

 

Dream Walkers, Installation by Terhi Ekebom

Soundscape for the installation by Sebastia Boulter:

https://soundcloud.com/user-756842154/unissakavelijat

 

 

 

 

July 2021

 

 

 

THE CASTRO 

 

6. - 17.6.2021

FokiaNou Art Space, Athens 

 

FokiaNou Art Space is pleased to present The Castro, a group show curated by Mary Cox and Panagiotis Voulgaris, for which participating artists responded to an open call.  The exhibition title refers to the famous San Francisco district that since the 1960s has become one of the most well-known centers of LGBT activism and culture in the world.  The title's double meaning is the antithesis of a free environment, that of a traditional castle as a walled-in, exclusive and restrictive institution. 

 

Artists were asked to play with the word castro, and its double meaning, presenting the bright and open castle of freedom, acceptance and equality, as well as the dark and enclosed castle of racism, homophobia and violence. The show comprises a wide variety of media: drawing, painting, photography, video and sculpture.

 

Press release by the curators

 

 

The song and the video by Sebastian Boulter and Taija Goldblatt are made in memory of Zak Kostopoulos (1985-2018), also known as Zackie Oh, a LGBTIQ+ activist in Greece. Kostopoulos was killed on a street in Athens in September 2018. The trial over his death began in October 2021 with six people being charged, four of them police officers.

 

The words in the song are an extract of a poem by Tassos Leivaditis. The extract was written on a wall at the place where Zak was beaten fatally. Leivaditis (1922-1988) was a poet, an essayist, screenwriter, literary critic and amongst many other works, the collaboration with Mikis Theodorakis, whom Leivaditis had first met when they were both in exile in the 1940s, continued in the field of songwriting, with the Greek composer putting many of Leivaditis’ poems to music.

 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKJ6VoeJT1A

 

 

In memory of Zak Kostopoulos | Zackie Oh 1985 – 2018

 

Lead vocal: Marilena Orfanou

Backing vocals: Apostol Terminal

Cello: Mikko Supponen

Guitars and bass: Sebastian Boulter

Drums and keyboards: Teemu Takatalo

 

Video: Taija Goldblatt

Music: Sebastian Boulter

Composed to an extract of poem by Tasos Leivaditis

Recording and mixing: Teemu Takatalo / Mutual Sound Studios

Mutual Recordings

 

www.mutualrecordings.net

 

 

 

 

February 2020

 

 

 

THIS SIDE 

 

7.2. - 27.2.2020

Chili Art Gallery, Athens

 

Curator, Paris Kapralos

 

 

From the pitch-black environment Sebastian Boulter digs out with charcoal the little light that can be imagined in the tunnel. There are penetrating roots appearing through the ceiling and collapsed sections of the roof, the floor and the walls. It is possible to discover sources, drainage pipes, Eridanos meeting Ilisos, rats and hundreds of cockroaches. The visual language of the works tends to diverge from realism to the world of imagination and illusion that cannot be avoided in the dim tunnel.

 

Artist's statement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finnish institute at Athens contributed realizing the exhibition

 

 

 

 

 

May 2019 

 

 

 

LEAD THE WAY 

 

9.5. - 1.6.2019

FokiaNou Art Space, Athens

 

Curators, Mary Cox and Panagiotis Voulgaris

 

 

Socrates: 

Let us turn aside here and go along the Ilisos; then we can sit down quietly wherever we please.

Phaedrus: 

I am fortunate, it seems, in being barefoot; you are so always. It is easiest then for us to go along the brook with our feet in the water, and it is not unpleasant, especially at this time of the year and the day.

Socrates: 

Lead on then, and look out for a good place where we may sit.

Phaedrus: 

Do you see that very tall plane tree?

Socrates: 

What of it?

Phaedrus: 

There is shade there and a moderate breeze and grass to sit on, or, if we like, to lie down on.

Socrates:

Lead the way.

 

Plato, Phaedrus, 229a-229d

 

 

FokiaNou Art Space is pleased to present the work of Sebastian Boulter, an Athens-based painter from Finland whose work often refers to environmental issues. He is interested in manipulated landscapes by human beings and other traces and tracks that humans leave behind them in nature. This exhibition of a series of drawings and paintings takes as its subject the river Ilisos, from the area between Kaisariani and Kallithea. Although this part of the river has been covered, that does not preclude one from having a philosophical discussion with a friend next to the river.

 

Artist's satament

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The exhibition has been organized in collaboration between FokiaNou Art Space and the Finnish Institute at Athens, with a financial support from VISEK (Centre for the Promotion of Visual Art). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 2019

 

TODAY WE BURY ILISOS 

 

The banks of the river Ilisos were systematically exploited by the Municipality of Athens from the 19th c. until 1920’s, as a source for sand and gravel, used to build the roads of the capital. Thus, following the growth of the population in the capital and the urgent need for more space in the urban environment, the part of the river up to the Panathenaic stadium was buried between 1939-1948; a decision made by dictator Ioannis Metaxas, with the legendary expression: "Today we bury Ilisos". 

 

 

Sebastian Boulter was chosen to a group exhibition Athens Under the Microscope in FokiaNou Art Space with his charcoal drawing on paper Today We Bury Ilisos. The exhibition took place on the 16th - 31st of January 2019. In addition to this, he was invited by Mary Cox and Panagiotis Voulgaris, the directors of FokiaNou Art Space, to hold a wider collection of his drawings in FokiaNou Art Space in May 2019. Boulter’s series of drawings of the river Ilisos is a research of this hidden river in Athens, which has been covered since the beginning of the 20th century. Nowadays it runs from Kaisariani to Kallithea, 7 km underground through the city centre. Since February 2018 Boulter has been drawing the up- and down reaches of the river. In July he explored the river by walking through the tunnel, making photos of it, but also having intimidating, fascinating and touching experience of rather dangerous journey. Throughout the documentation and the experience, he continued the drawings of the river from inside the tunnel. 

 

 

  • The sculpture of the Semi-God Ilisos of the river is depicted by Phidias in the western pediment of the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Socrates and Phaedrus discussed the philosophy of soul and love on the riverbank of Ilisos. The Athenians got their drinking water from the river still one hundred years ago. Today, in the rainy season, it runs 7km under the ground. On dry seasons the tunnel is walkable from the other outskirt of the city to the other one in few hours, but it is NOT recommendable, and anyhow strictly forbidden. 

 

 

 

 2018 Drawings 4Pet Semetery 110x150 charcoal on paper 2018

 

Up reach of the river Ilisos in Kaisariani

Today We Bury Ilisos, 110x150, charcoal on paper, 2018