“Innocence can be confrontational, and exhibitionism jarringly sweet.
In the nebulous space of contemporary sexuality, behaviours that exit on the fringe of social norms are rarely taboo these days yet continue to be acknowledged as outsider, as dark, and, to too many, inherently wrong. The joyful abandon of nakedness has been repressed by universal standards of propriety to become a state so often reserved for the private lives of couples, or chance encounters with strangers in the dark.
Dissolving these limitations, Spyros’ photographs vibrate with a calming sense of inclusivity, and an intimacy that reads neither voyeuristic nor ego-driven (he remains entirely absent from the images himself). Both engaging and unpretentious, a gritty romance and frank sense of humour run through his narrative, as he captures lovers and friends in a plethora of dressed and undressed states. Appropriated tenets of costume and tinges of punk abound—framed within domestic, urban, and natural environments mostly detached from any clear sense of time or place. An indelible sense of community and celebration is inherent, and through collage or repetition, scenarios and characters emerge: bodies and faces whose unapologetic, at times exuberant physicality is tinged with the codes of bygone subcultures.
Via the immediacy of his gaze, there is no questioning Spyros’ allegiance to a great twentieth-century tradition if photographic realism: following in the footsteps of men and women dedicated to documenting the excess and abandon of their generation. This adjacency subtracts nothing from the work, rather, justifying its place as a cultural artefact in today’s hyper-connected, ephemeral existence.”
— Dan Thawley
