Present Tense
“We penetrated deeper and deeper into heart of darkness” Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”
Is it possible for a black and white world to evoke a whole palette of emotions? In Kosmas’ Iliadis series photographic world of monochromatic wastelands and distorted figures, one can experience the absence of color as a contradicting need from the part of the photographer to fully capture the surrounding light.
© Kosmas Iliadis
© Kosmas Iliadis
© Kosmas Iliadis
With the mountains of Northern Greece as a background Iliadis’ body of work “Present Tense” probes into the savage natural landscape, capturing it in all its primitiveness. Attracted by the darkness and its high, continuous contrast with the light, Iliadis’ lens raises the objects of his affection by emphasizing on their very core, extracting the deeper substance of his environment and transforming the ephemeral of the moment into a concrete black and white stillness in time.
© Kosmas Iliadis
© Kosmas Iliadis
© Kosmas Iliadis
© Kosmas Iliadis
© Kosmas Iliadis
Driven by curiosity and willing to capture a deeper essence of his surroundings the photographer took it upon him to explore and shade the emptiness of an industrial area, the loneliness of an empty road, the paganism emanating from a man’s lute, bringing the viewer face to face with a frozen moment in time, stripped of color but enriched with tension and edginess. Through distortion in “Present Tense” there comes clarity, and through abandonment we, the viewers, come closer by sharing a mutual feeling; the feeling of being there, in a place, bathed in the cruelty of present tense.
BIO
Kosmas Iliadis was born in northern Greece in 1991. He started taking pictures when he was very young,but while he was studying economics,he realised that he was spending most of his time experimenting with photography. In 2014 started taking seminars to ‘Stereosis Photograhy Center’ in Thessaloniki and had his first contact with analog photography. ‘Present Tense’ is his first solo project.
INFO
Kosmas Iliadis