Kon Markogiannis is an experimental photographer, collage artist, existential poet, philosophical essayist, independent researcher and spiritual seeker with an interest in gnostic themes such as death, mortality, the human condition, the exploration of the psyche and the evolution of consciousness.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
LensCulture
LensCulture
is one of the most authoritative resources for contemporary photography from
around the world. It is committed to discovering and promoting the best of the
global photography community.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
KONMARK IMAGES WORDS
Blog covering multiple topics such as ancient and contemporary art, sacred sites and architecture, experimental photography, existential and perennial philosophy, world mythology and folklore, transpersonal psychology, parapsychology and the occult, eastern and western poetry and literature, world cinema, meditative music, alternative history and archaeology, comparative religion, esotericism, hermeticism, mysticism, contemporary spirituality, integral theories, psychedelic research, science and the evolution of consciousness.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Mind Patterns (Work in Progress)
Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is the Immutable Boundless Light.
(Padmasambhava, The Tibetan
Book of the Dead)
Mind Patterns is a series of cameraless photographs/computer
constructions which deal with the artist’s inner need to transcend mundane
reality in search of the absolute. The work was inspired by Tibetan Buddhist
theories regarding “universal consciousness” and the art of avant-garde
pioneers such as Man Ray and László
Moholy-Nagy whose photographic experiments
(solarizations, photograms etc) challenged the established notion of photographic
"reality".
Manifestations
of the ineffable exist in our subconscious where billions of organic and inorganic,
human and pre-human images and experiences are stored in a kind of virtual hard
drive. With the help of computer simulation-manipulation I attempted to retract
primordial shapes and symbols, textures and patterns, spaces of darkness and
luminance from this collective depository and rendered them into digital post-photographic
photograms.
My intention with this experimental work was to suggest that everyday reality as we
normally perceive it is a kind of virtual reality: it is a product of our
limited awareness and an illusion imposed by our senses. According to Buddhist
teachings our minds are integral parts and exponents of a universal network of
energy (“universal mind”) which is eternal, indestructible and omnipresent. By
applying appropriate techniques and practices -such as meditation and artistic
creation- the individual has the potential to rise above trivial reality and
experience a radiant supra-reality and enlightened state of mind (“clear
light”).
Monday, August 29, 2016
Saturday, August 13, 2016
ArtGemini Prize 2016 Exhibition
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Friday, July 1, 2016
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Konstruktion (work in progress)
An ongoing
series of collages inspired by great avantgarde artists of the past such as
Kurt Schwitters. These
collages are a way of making sense of our complex, fragmented world and an
artistic attempt to impose unity and order on life's chaos. Bits and
pieces of newspaper, calendar pages and other discarded ephemera take on new
life by being combined, juxtaposed and superimposed; through playful
improvisation and experimentation they form mysterious alliances proving that
even the (seemingly) worthless can have value and meaning.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Sam magazine (editor`s pick May 2016)
“Porno_Sublime_02”, editor's pick, Sam Slovak art magazine (May 2016).
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Monday, April 25, 2016
Divine Decay
“Despite wide recognition that art has an
important commercial aspect, art sustains its cultural image as an essentially
sanctified domain of higher spiritual values, beyond the realm of material life
and praxis”. [01]
-Richard Shusterman
Divine Decay is a series of photographic/mixed media
constructions informed
and inspired by holy texts, illuminated manuscripts, death memorials,
alchemical/occult symbols, sacred geometry, religious icons and Renaissance
panel paintings. The work deals with memory, remembrance and decay and tackles issues such as
spirituality which is often neglected but also essential for the well-being and
inner balance of the individual in our hypertechnological and increasingly
materialistic society.
The gritty
and damaged appearance of the images alludes to fragility, mortality and the
transient nature of earthly existence. Although
such subjects are generally perceived as rather morbid and depressing,
reflection on their significance could prove to be an illuminating way of
reflecting on life. Photography is a
medium often associated with death and impermanence: in her influential book On Photography Susan Sontag suggests
that “all photographs are memento mori.” “A photograph,” she says, “is (participation) in another person’s (or
thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” [02]
The use of
photographic portraiture intends to affect the viewer on a visceral and
spiritual level: quite often a face has been described as “the mirror of the
soul” and even today some cultures believe that a photograph somehow
captures the soul of a person. The combination of portraits with religious iconography, holy texts and
various esoteric symbols suggests that death may not be a definite full stop
but -perhaps- a gateway to another kind of existence. According to many
religions and wisdom traditions life on earth may be perceived as a
gift, a learning experience or a kind of journey. The father of analytical
psychology C.G. Jung
(who combined various fields of research such as religion, mythology and
alchemy) believed that the human psyche has a relatively trans-spacial and
trans-temporal nature. As he has argued, “we are not completely subjected to
the powers of annihilation because our psychic totality reaches beyond the barrier
of space and time.” [03]
Life after
death as a concept is somewhat incomprehensible, ungraspable and unfathomable.
Nevertheless, it is perhaps something we ought to consider and prepare for. The
aim of Divine Decay is to remind us both of our finitude and
our potential immortality: via playful combinations relationships are formed which result in a kind
of alchemical synthesis of various elements which seek to communicate with the viewer on an aesthetic, esoteric and
spiritual level.
References:
[01] Shusterman R. (fall 2008) ‘Art and Religion’. Journal of Aesthetic
Education. 42 (3), p.2.
[02] Sontag, S. (1978) On Photography.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
[03] Jung, C.G. (1999) Jung on Death and Immortality. Princeton
University Press, p. 132.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
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