Acrobats, stilt walkers, balloons, dolphins juggling in the sky, a paper boat, girls on a swing, a masquerade "train", a scene from a black theater and children playing tug-of-war are the protagonists in the works of K. Massos. Play, the Roman ludus, the diffusion of the playful spirit in "serious" life characterizes his work this time. The painter creates realistic and at the same time allegorical spaces, which break with the expected. Each image would be a normal scene if there were not that which overturns it, which turns it upside down.
The series of small black and white works that function like photographic negatives, refer to a notebook, while still maintaining their autonomy. K. Massos gathers and studies the elements that concern him before proceeding to the color “printing”. In this section of his work, the city, which has always starred in his works, now gradually disappears. Its place is taken by ossified cities and buildings that fly in the sky like balloons. The scenery changes. Nature makes its presence felt for the first time in a dynamic and almost imposing way. Foliage of various kinds, a sea and a seawater pool flood the images and claim their space and time.
The heroes of K. Massos are now called upon to walk on a tightrope, to cross the winding ladder, to balance between the present and the future, the now and tomorrow, nature and culture, life and death. Whatever they have not had time to think about or realize, they will do now. “This world is like a ladder. Every step of it breaks when you climb it. On the last step, the ladder does not exist.” (N. Karouzos, The Ladder). The ladder is a new element - a point in his work. A ladder without a beginning, without an end, which shows us the path we will take. Maybe if we continue walking we will see our world changing. Maybe not.
Narrative and script have always been elements of Konstantinos’ work. In this case, games are used as a new type of fiction, within fiction. Homo ludens, the man-player, proposes to us a new way of representing causal systems, a new way of critiquing political and social entities and thus a new way of reconstructing the world (J. Huizinga, Homo ludens).
