George Petrides’ Hellenic Heads in Venice: Portraying Family and Greek History

It is a traveling exhibition where Venice is the fifth stop, followed by Istanbul in December. Its debut was at the Embassy of Greece in Washington, DC in 2022. 

Petrides, born in Athens but living in New York since his childhood, describes himself as a Greek-American who’s always been interested in his heritage. His first career was on Wall Street, where he rose to be a Managing Director of an investment bank, while pursuing his passion of studying and making art part-time.

At 32 years old, he took his first art class and studied for twenty years until he decided to become a full-time artist in 2017. His creation process blends antique techniques with modern 3D printing and a software that allows him to perfect and modify facial and body features without losing days of work or wasting precious materials. 

It is rare for an exhibition to be held in a place that perfectly resonates with the artist’s life and the spirit of the work. Saint George of the Greeks is a Greek orthodox church adjacent to the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies. 

The Institute hosts the Museum of Icons, one of the most important collections of Orthodox icons and art in the world. When asked about the importance of contextualization for a work of art, Petrides has no doubts. 

Venice is the perfect location for Hellenic Heads, because the city and the Church of Saint George are “historic Greek location[s]. That part of Castello [one of the six Venetian sestriere, subdivisions] was inhabited by Greeks since the 13th century. The Greeks started building that particular church around 1548.”

The spirituality and presence found in the six busts create a personal, as well as universal, journey. Viewers travel, not only chronologically through six events that defined Greek history, but also personally through Petrides’ family. The bust titled The Refugee represents the Burning of Smyrna by Ottoman forces in 1922 and has the features of Petrides’ grandmother who managed to escape the city and find refuge in Athens. 

The artist describes that he “portrayed her as she must have felt as a young woman of only 19 years old.” Through old photographs, footage, and accounts, Petrides created a portrait that is haunting, as well as hopeful. 

Inspired by The Florentine Pietà (1555) by Michelangelo, The Refugee portrays the loss and displacement caused by war, as well as the strength of those who built a future in a different country after being forced to leave their homes. The message of this bust poignantly resonates with the state of the world today. 

While The Refugee’s surface is a contrast between sparks of light and depths of shadows, Kore is pure brightness. With a smooth, shiny texture, the features of Petrides’ daughter embody hope and optimism. Kore is also the only statue looking up towards the future with a clear smile upon her face. 

“I’m using the sculpture to reconnect with my family,” explains Petrides. “When you look at my daughter who’s gold, that’s pure love.” 

Talking with Petrides, it becomes clear that historical roots spread deep into the ground and create connections across countries, beliefs, and centuries. What grows from there is a forest of experiences that bind us together in sympathy (συμπάθεια)— a Greek word that comes from the union of syn, meaning together, and pathos, meaning emotion, experience. 

Hellenic Heads reminds us of the importance of sharing our stories and our emotions. For Petrides, this exhibition is “honoring my loved ones, it is conveying the other people, what their lives were like. It is locking into Greek history” he remarks.

Hellenic Heads is on show at the Church of Saint George of the Greeks in Venice until November 24th, 2024. The artist would like to thank the Embassy of Greece in Rome, the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies of Venice, the Honorary Consulate of Greece in Venice, the Greek Orthodox Community of Venice, and the support of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy.