Ella, Lucy and Robyn Painting

Zenon Jepras is a storyteller who has come to dig into our past, to record our recollections and reconstruct them in order to offer us a form of archaeology of memory. Each work holds clues to deeper personal and social narratives, like skeletons hidden in the closet. His characters often take the form of animals for satirical effect; thus creating an "˜alternative world' that serves to undermine socially dominant forces. What is particularly interesting is that his work is reminiscent of the post-expressionist movement of New Objectivism that emerged in the Weimar Republic of Germany and ended with the rise of Hitler to power. As George Grosz, Jepras turns his satirical eye towards what has proven to be a kind of hypocritical patriotism; on the ignorance and even indifference of laymen towards what was happening; on the greediness and corruption of the decades that led to the fall. Are we today, on evidence for the rise of neonazism and authoritarian goverments in a number of European countries, insist on burying our head in the sand.. But Jepras is not condemnatory; on the contrary, he looks upon his subjects with empathy; with a kind of nostalgia brought to him by his own upbringing as an emigrant; with acceptance and forgiveness. Effi Kyprianidou Dec 2012 Zenon Jepras was born in Cardiff, Wales, UK in 1969 to Greek parents, from Corfu and Cyprus. He lives and works in London. (Insta: )