Odyssey

Markos Kampanis’s engagement with the Odyssey began in 2018. It was then that he started creating a series of works inspired by the Homeric epic. This body of work constitutes a painterly voyage—shorter than Homer’s—based on a parallel, imaginary geography conceived by the artist in the wake of the Homeric one.

The series is still ongoing. Its first exhibition comprising approximately twenty works, was presented in 2025 at the Ghika Gallery of the Benaki Museum in Athens.

The central exhibit is a work in the form of a four-volume artists book created by M.K., who painted with charcoal and acrylic over a digital reproduction of the 15th-century manuscript Harley MS 6325, held by the British Library. Many of the works also take the form of painted books, each related to a specific narrative or rhapsody of the epic, while paintings based on real or imagined maps of the journeys of Odysseus and Telemachus complete the series.

At the Benaki Museum exhibition, a few drawings, sculptures, and oil paintings by Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika were also included, initiating a distinctive dialogue with the works of M.K. The exhibition was curated by M. Dimitrakopoulos and K. Papachristou, with exhibition design by R. Sakellaridou and lighting by El. Deko.

Exhibition Video: