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Painting workshop “Terirem” is located in the Old Marketplace of the town of Mytilene. Out of personal choice, we live and work in the beautiful island of Lesvos. The abundance of architectural features in the scheduled settlements, the everyday beauty of images, the living memories and the narrations of the people you meet in the island, the imposing, exquisitely decorated temples, as well as the countless, humble country chapels and the poignant beauty of nature, have been instrumental in our decision to settle here and have determined the type of art we decided to pursue.
What preceded was our love for old wood and items, many of which are a work of art in their own right. By observing them, you can trace the point from which the artist started working on them and when his hand was bent from fatigue in the times when there was no machinery and everything was made by hand!
Then, we collect those old pieces of wood that many people, friends and customers, acquaintances or unknown ones, bring us with joy because they will not have to dispose of their old shutters that had to be replaced, or grandmother’s chest that does not fit in the flat. On them we paint what is around us, as well as the memories of what existed before; all these which, with their fragile simplicity, help us dream and shed light on the chaotic times we live in.
Constantina & Fotini Maragou
Landscapes
The subjects are taken mainly from black and white gravures and copperplates of Greece and Asia Minor, as well as from photos of our archive, starting from the beginning of the 20th century and reaching the 1950s-1970s.
Inspiration from frescoes
Ideas inspired from frescoes of houses in Lesvos, the rest of Greece, Asia Minor and the Balkans, which date back to 18th-19th century and include coastal mansions, landscapes, subjects with flowers and so on.
Seascapes
Byzantine ships, ships crossing the Aegean and the Mediterranean in the 18th and 19th century and the first steamboats, ahead of their time.
Hagiographies
Our hagiographies are copies of special, rare portable icons (byzantine and renaissance) and frescoes from Lesvos, the Ionian islands, the rest of Greece and Asia Minor.
Our criterions of selection are the spirituality and sweetness emitted by the forms themselves.
Wood – Maintenance
We begin our work by maintaining the piece of wood we wish to paint. We remove the stucco and the colour it usually has on it (unless we wish to incorporate it in our painting process), we remove and restore any rotten part of wood, make preventative treatment for bookworm and smooth the wood. During its maintenance, we do not try to make wood look more presentable or new; on the contrary we highlight its old age and do not cover any wear but incorporate it in our painting.
Colours
We use acrylic colours, temperas, water colours, guage in mixed techniques and oils. For the special art of hagiography, we follow the traditional way of preparing the icon by affixing the jaconet and applying the stucco. For hagiography we use powders and egg temperas.
We complete the process in all our works with the technique of artificial aging.