THEOMITORIKA FESTIVAL 2026

General State Archives/Historical Archive – Museum of Hydra

Official opening: Saturday 1 August 2026, 21:00

It is our special honour and pleasure to announce the opening of the exhibition of painting by Giorgos Taxidis entitled ‘MOUNT ATHOS: LAND OF SILENCE’, which will be held in the central hall of the General State Archives/Historical Archive – Museum of Hydra as part of the 2026 Theomitorika Festival. The event is being organised by the Mount Athos Center in Thessaloniki in collaboration with the Cathedral Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Hydra.   

The exhibition represents the fruit of a long-standing artistic programme involving the Mount Athos Center and the artist Giorgos Taxidis, who, during the period 2020-2025, made over fifteen visits to the Athonite state, during which he visited all twenty monasteries, followed the daily programme of the monks, joined in their acts of worship, conversed with them, and recorded these experiences in 115 artworks – using a variety of media, including pencil, charcoal, oil and watercolour – as well as in a number of sculptures and prints.

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The exhibition was first presented at the exhibition space of the Mount Athos Center (29 June – 11 October 2025) and then travelled to the CYCLOPS Multi-Purpose Cultural Centre (the ‘Marble House’) in Drama (7 November 2025 – 15 February 2026). It then moved on to Istanbul, where, in collaboration with the General Consulate of Greece in Istanbul, it was presented at the Sismanoglio Megaro from 26 March until 16 April 2026.

During the course of the 2020-2025 artistic programme, the director Nikos Anagnostopoulos accompanied the artist on some of his visits to Mount Athos and created the documentary bearing the same title as the exhibition. This documentary will be screened on the evening of the official opening in the courtyard of the Historical Archive – Museum of Hydra and will be immediately followed by a public discussion with the artist himself, the director Nikos Anagnostopoulos and the curator of the exhibition Anastasios Douros.

 

In conjunction with the exhibition, a catalogue bearing the same title has been released that includes all of Giorgos Taxidis’ works, together with texts by the art historian Giannis Bolis and David Ebony, a former managing editor of the Art in America magazine and a contributing editor of many leading American art journals.

 

Throughout the duration of the artistic programme, Giorgos Taxidis kept a journal, entries from which are included in the exhibition catalogue. In the journal he recorded his remarkable experiences on Athos: ‘(On Mount Athos) I would let myself take in what I was seeing, without being under any pressure to paint what I had already previously mastered. I came into conflict with my own artistic work in order to create something new, something I’d never painted before. It occurred to me that, in a way, despite the differences between them, monks and artists travel the same path in life: all that inner struggle, that lifetime’s purpose, that dedication and devotion to one’s work. Being patient and praying in one’s own individual way. Above all, accomplishing a work in the most authentic way. We too seek the “true light”.’ (Journal entry for 4 June 2021).

 

Biographical sketch

Giorgos Taxidis was born in 1987 and from 2010 to 2015 studied in the Department of Visual and Applied Arts in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s School of Fine Arts, where he graduated with honours. Through the Erasmus programme (2013-2014), he studied at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Madrid (UCM, Facultad de Bellas Artes). Later (2017-2019), on a scholarship, he undertook postgraduate studies at the New York Academy of Art. He has received a total of 12 scholarships (from the Fulbright Foundation, the NEON Organisation and the Georgios Varkas Legacy, among others). In 2012 he received a commendation from the Hellenic Post Office for a series of stamps entitled Europa 2012, and in 2014 won first prize in the Art and the City 5 competition in Athens. In 2018 his work was selected for the XL Catlin Art Prize competition, and in 2019 was awarded a prize by the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York. That year he taught drawing at the San Domenico School of Fine Arts. He designed the Cyclops Award for the urban non-profit association Cyclops based in Drama. He has presented six one-man shows and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Greece and other countries. Works of his are to be found in private collections both in Greece and abroad.

 

Curator of the 2020-2025 artistic programme and the exhibition: Anastasios Douros, Director of the Mount Athos Center.

Duration of exhibition: 1 – 31 August 2026