GEORGE SFOUGARAS ARTWORKS

THE TRACKS SERIES OF PRINTS:   Turner Street  The shoes that walked in Northfields when I was there in my first teaching job have long perished, so these are not the original soles. The school that gave me my first go at what became a 30-year long career, is now long gone and has been replaced by a small modern-looking estate and playground.  Walking down Turner street, I thought with fondness and melancholia in equal measures of Gino, the wise old Neapolitan barber, that managed for the first time since I arrived in England to give me a decent haircut.  He understood my thick black Mediterranean hair and used his scissors with the same dexterity that my father used when he cut my hair when I was little.  It afforded me a glimpse of the past and a sense of 'home', that little barber's shop.  Always a warm greeting, always a great haircut.   Una Faccia, Una Razza, he would say, as Greeks and Italians often say about each other (One face, one r...

  THE TRACKS SERIES OF PRINTS:  A Garden to Reflect a Clandestine Faith The 'Tracks' Series is about recording various events.  Wherever possible old footwear forms the basis for the whimsical engravings. Some of the shoes and boots used have a history that links them to the place, time, and the area they depict.  Others use materials or artefacts which allude to the place and time, linking the memories to physical objects.    The unconventionality of the approach is meant to show the flexibility and fun of relief printing, as well as create a body of work which has a unique corporeal quality.  The standard printing plate is replaced by functional objects that are engraved, gouged and otherwise scored to create a relief print.  This approach is rooted in my research on past family histories and archives and aims to extend into the area of personal testimony and commemoration.  A geographical map location and coordinates are provided with each...

  - The Light in the Darkness Installations - Installation dates: Originally planned for January 2021.  New dates 2 nd to 14 th July at Leicester Unitarian Chapel, 45 East Bond Street. Leicester Museum and Art Gallery New Walk Leicester from 21 st June to 19 th September 2021. 'Thou shall not Kill' Original Title:  Du Sollst Nicht Töten.  Year of production : 1930  Johannes Matthaeus Koeltz © Estate of Johannes Koelz. All rights reserved, DACS 2013. In March 2020 I was asked to create a response to the soon to be exhibited painting 'Thou shall not Kill' and link it with the plight of refugees, past and present. In the painting, the artist shows us the horror and destruction of war, as he quotes one of the Holy Commandments. In this large work, cut up and hidden from the Nazi regime, Johannes Matthaeus Koeltz exposes the futility, hypocrisy, and violence of armed conflict. This exhibition was also created to be part of the Holocaust Memorial Day i...

  'Gedling' Some footprints are indelible. 'GEDLING'                                           Latitude, longitude :  52.975313, -1.090608 Engraved relief print on 1960s workboot soles. Carved with pheil tools, printed on Awagami Hosho Select Japanese stock.  Speedball professional relief ink.  It seemed like a simple idea, but it clearly went beyond the ordinary. I posted the engraved soles and the imprint on various social media platforms, where the reaction was in some cases extraordinary.  Maybe it touched something beyond the inventiveness of using a previously unused surface as the printing plate? I hope so.  I like the image for its powerful simplicity and the mixed messages it communicates. Shoes are both symbols of journeys and yet they are also defiled by the act of being trodden on. They are destined to walk on the ground, picking up the dust ...