Andrew Arnaoutopoulos: Still Life
Artists
Photos: Mick Richards
FireWorks Gallery presents Still Life, a solo exhibition by Brisbane-based artist Andrew Arnaoutopoulos. Born in Greece and working in Australia for over four decades, Arnaoutopoulos has developed a practice that extends and interrogates the legacy of modernism. Inspired by his time employed in a packaging factory, his work explores the material and conceptual limits of painting, often evoking industrial surfaces such as rust, brick, signage, and graffiti.
Arnaoutopoulos’ practice “blurs the distinctions between what constitutes a painting as a finished work of art and the by-product and detritus produced through the painting process"(Nicholas Tsoutas 2023), proposing a form of “un-painting” that reconsiders both the history and meaning of abstraction.
While his practice has engaged with graphic design, performance, and process art, Still Life brings this longstanding investigation into dialogue with the conventions of still life. The exhibition presents nine paintings alongside an installation of studio debris—materials oversprayed with paint and treated as integral to the work. Together, these elements collapse the boundary between artwork and residue.
Across the series, familiar objects—paint tins, a mannequin—appear blurred or indistinct, resisting fixed interpretation. Rather than descriptive, these images remain suggestive, echoing the ambiguity of the surrounding installation. Arnaoutopoulos is equally concerned with what lies beyond the frame: the overspray that escapes the canvas becomes a critical extension of the work, suggesting that meaning may reside as much outside the image as within it.
Also presented are works from previous series Samos and Markings. The Samos series is derived from the weathered blue walls of an abandoned leprosy hospital near Karlovasi on the Greek island of Samos, a site connected to the artist’s origins. In the Markings works shown, Arnaoutopoulos uses repetition to create a powerful visual statement. These works further reflect Arnaoutopoulos’ enduring engagement with surface, memory, and place.
