Ethereal trees that defy conventional form on Aegina

If there is one thing Anastasis Ioannou remembers from his childhood, it's his father stuck among his easels of oils and watercolors, wielding a paintbrush or pencil. And there, in the creative chaos of Stavros Ioannis (1945-2009), a renowned expressionist and student of Yannis Moralis, young Anastasis would sit at his own small easel, mimicking his father. And just as all the signs were pointing to him taking a different path to that of his artist parents (his mother, Sissy Vamvaka, was also a painter) and pursuing a career in theoretical physics, which is what he studied at the National Technical University of Athens, Anastasis Ioannou had an epiphany just before embarking on a PhD that blew it all out of the water - or perhaps put everything in its proper place.

This, at least, is what I felt looking at the paintings in his third solo show, currently running at the Aegina...