When we split in two

George Petrou works mainly with moving image, photography, sculpture, performance, and video installation. His practice as a visual artist explores the human body; its strengths, promises, and boundaries. Deriving from this interest and alongside his individual practice George works as a Simulation Developer in Surgery creating highly realistic surgical phantoms, which mimic real-life tissue behaviour and anatomical structure.

 

George Petrou Execution Room

In his video-performances George Petrou films the human body repeating the same action continually over lengthy periods of time (6-8 hours). The resulting videos are edited down to a few minutes that show the subtle and gradual changes that the body undergoes in this time. Building slowly, the pieces have no narrative beginning, middle or end, but instead become intense and captivating examinations of the body and the self vested with anticipation.

And the birth of Venus, 2012 – Single channel video, (dv, colour, 4:3), 11’56’’

In this light, his practice seeks to explore and challenge the predominant ideologies that society holds and constructs in relation to identity and selfhood. He is interested in the idea that surface separates us from the world around us but also protects, covers, and allows us to grow and connect with it. His imagery explores the dynamic between the outside and the inside in relation to one’s own sense of self and others and it seeks to make visible the devices and structures of human relationships.

Cords I, 2015, Digital print, dimensions variable

Cords I, 2015, Digital print, dimensions variable

 

O.I.H.R – Single channel video, (dv, colour, 4:3), 06’40’’

In O.I.H.R, 2012 he developed and fabricated a black and white body part anatomically accurate and with high visual and haptic realism. Thinking about performance art and the development of surgical dexterity, the artist followed instructions on you-tube and performed an Open Inguinal Hernia Repair on his model and filmed it in colour. Aiming to reveal the transformation of the human body into a processed object of medical manipulation, the work invites the spectator to experience the shock and craft of the operative performance. In this sense, everyday humanity competes against its own fragility, and O.I.H.R seeks to mix the boundaries between faith, skill, trial-and-error craft, performance and art, encouraging exploration and reconceptualization of the new rules of present and future living.

Cords II, 2015 Digital print, dimensions variable

Cords II, 2015
Digital print, dimensions variable

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Rough-cut, 2010 – Single channel video, (dv, colour, 4:3), 07’55’’

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Never met, 2011 – Single channel video, (hdv, colour, 16:9), actual duration 22’33’’

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Surface, 2007 – Single channel video, (dv, colour, 4:3), duration 13’05’’

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When we split in two, 2011 – Single channel video, (dv, colour, 4:3), 06’57’’

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www.georgepetrou.com

www.medinart.eu/works/george-petrou/

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