Achilleas Ambatzidis

Baba Tryptic, 2019, Silkscreen 16 x 24 inches.

Three prints dedicated to my father, inspired by Rokuro Taniuchi self portraits. I wanted to separate my father from the people/world around him and have his image floating in nothing but color, radiating as I imagine him.

Untitled Monoprint, 2019, Monoprint, 18 x 26 inches.

A print focusing on the power of non figurative work, thinking about the term “desert of pure feeling” I wanted to create a piece that used no visual language, strictly color.

Red to Red (South Dakota), 2020. String, approx. 200 yds.

This work was created in the Badlands National Park, South Dakota – a single string pulled between two small hills whose formation is seen through the colored sediment built up from millions of years of accumulated erosion - showing a geographical timeline of the area.

Untitled String, 2021. String, fishing wire, installation variable.

This work was created in my studio, I wanted to make the illusion of string suspended in the air,
almost as if it was floating within the space. With a more inquisitive eye you can see the fishing
wire holding the strings up, but the initial disorientation hoped to spur questions about our
assumptions of space within and outside of the studio.

Untitled String 2021. String, installation variable.

This piece was created after drawings in my notebook, separating each square by 5 inches,
slowly growing in size and depth. This work, as well as Untitled String, strives to disorient the
viewer to cause a deeper inquiry

Risograph Installation, 2022. Paper, installation variable.

A series of images taken on film by myself the past 2 years, pinned around the studio walls to create a living and breathing space of image – the lightness of the paper causing curling and bending due to humidity of the space.

Artist Statement

My name is Achilleas Ambatzidis, I was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. When I was 18 months old my father suddenly passed away, my mom decided to take my brother and I back to her home state of California amidst the sudden loss of my dad. Themes throughout my work have been dealing with grief and reflecting on life and death through printmaking, collage, painting, and sculpture. I have tried to create my own identity of my father while always including but still separate from the images and ideas I have heard of him since as early as I can remember.

Through this work I became fascinated with the concept of Epoché, the Ancient Greek philosophy, which roughly translates to “Suspension of Judgment”, the idea being if one suspends their own judgments to the world, to an individual, to themselves, they are bound to learn more than they would if they did not, and hopefully are much more likely to see the world in a greater sense of the word. I began to investigate this concept in my art through installation related works and became fascinated with the idea of creation not based in object, but rather in space and experience. This work can take many forms, at times the focus is on a single string and at other times it is the forming of a space to create a sense of separation from the world outside, or the ideas within oneself. Our perception changes how we view the world and how we interact with everything around us – my work tries to dissolve these filters we put on our world – hoping to get closer to the pure feeling of life.