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Constanze Zikos' art explores how
cultural forms – patterns, symbols, styles – circulate and
transform from one context and usage to another. Emerging as an artist
through exhibition in Melbourne and Sydney in the late 1980s and early
1990s, Constanze became known for his stylish and contemporary use
of classically
derived designs within the context of a rigorously geometric and mostly
abstract art. By drawing in the endlessly re-cycled and popularized
patterns
and motifs that denote the 'classical', and combining these
with a distinctive use of manufactured decorative veneers such as laminex,
vinyl, contact, Constanze's work also engages with the idea of the fake
and counterfeit, particularly as it relates to the textures and finishes
of urban life. His flamboyant plays with trapping and trimmings show
how recognizable symbols can become malleable forms, open to willfully
erroneous
translation as it is common within contemporary culture, Constanze's
art mingles the sacred with the secular, the symbolic with the decorative,
the real with the fake, the cultural specific with the abstract and
universal.
Many of his works can be seen as contemporary, secular versions of traditional
icons; they play with the power and fascination of icons and with our
desire to place faith in images. We can see how many facets of Constanze's
art are drawn together by an unmistakable sensibility and a language
of forms that instinctively reflects the urban culture which it is drawn.
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Electro Lashes, 2003
mixed media, dimensions variable 
Dorian #4, 1993
enamel on laminex, 20 x 30 cm
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photographs courtesy the artist
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