Yatridès News Scrolls, 60x92 cm Private collection 1977

We must consider the path travelled by the painter himself. If, at the end of the fifties, one were to ask him the reason for decking his enigmatic female figures with these expressionless eye sockets, he was incapable of providing a satisfactory answer and no expositor, however qualified, was able to say further.

It was only thirty years later, once the presence of a hidden reality had been recognized in his work, that the explanation appeared of its own accord.

Yatridès' work can be approached from a very modern viewpoint, but also in a wholly ancestral manner, near biblical in nature. On the one hand, the painter places figures, freed from outer appearances, in a post-scientific space, situated beyond media manipulation and technological servitude. But, on the other, he binds himself to a discipline, an ethic, from which our age of voyeurism and idolatry is far removed.

As a painter, he spontaneously identifies with certain Commandments, like those one can read in the book of Exodus (20 : 4 and 7) :

• "Thou shalt not make to thyself any idol, nor any graven image of that which is to be found in the heavens above, on the earth below or in the waters under the earth".
• "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain".

Does not the strict respect for these Commandments simply condemn the pictorial depiction? Yatridès respects them without cheating, and yet his works are there and bear witness. But to what do they bear witness then? First of all they attest to a fight, to a sort of struggle between the angel and the devil, in which Yatridès is himself constantly implicated. It is a question considered at length in the work, 'Yatridès and His Century' :

• "My eye follows the workings of my hand. I have two brains: one spontaneously directs my hand. It is a memory with a vast storehouse of known signs at its disposal. It would be happy merely to reproduce them. The other is the censor, the creator. It ruthlessly detects complacency and concessions. I have striven to experience in the most intense way possible the capacities of a particular mode of expression. In doing that, I follow a path that is constantly changing. I have confidence in it and continue to advance into this universe which is progressively opening itself up before me".
• "What I feel is, that truth exists only through creation. For me, to create, is to experience at one and the same time all possible hypotheses, to be stirred by all eventualities and to express all of that. For me, the canvas is a battlefield".

YATRIDES confronts SATAN, this brain which attempts to drive men towards complacency and compromise.

It is thus that the perspectives are radically modified and his canvases are imbued with a biblical inspiration, when, as a painter, he takes a stand against SATAN. But he also clashes with GOD, or rather with all the convictions and apostasies elaborated about him. The field of confrontation is the BIBLE.

Yatridès Biblical Bread, 60x92 cm Private collection 1973

Extracts from following documents and works :
Official Authorities : "Administrative biography"

Arthur Conte : "Yatridès master of time" SGL 04.03.1991
Sacha Bourmeyster : "Yatridès and his century" , "Yatridès the painter of the invisible reality" ,
"Yatridès, l'anti-Picasso" SGL 24.03.1994, "The Interstellars Icons" SGL 31.03.1994,
"Yatridès and the Bible" SGL 30.10.96
Monographic catalogues 1954-1993 : Exhibitions and Retrospectives YATRIDES
Monographic catalogues : "International Biennials art festivals" Canada-France from 1987 to 1993
(Great Master guest of honour -Grand Maître invité d'honneur)
Events, Schools of painting 1900-1959, 1910-1960, 1910-1965 : USA Events achievment held with works,
of which Yatridès ' paintings, lent by US important prominent Private Collections of the United States
(See in this website "His work" and in "His life" : "Bibliography")
Films, Videos, University theses : YATRIDES ' work has fascinated film-makers, movie-directors, semiologists,
among the best of our time.
See in "His life" : "Entourage" in which appear   "Jean DELANNOY",  "Marcel CARNE"
famed movie-Directors,  film-Makers,   and  in "His work" :
"YATRIDES - KUBRICK".

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