The Artists

Demetrios Vakras 2024

Lee-Anne Raymond 2024

Melbourne surrealists, Demetrios Vakras and Lee-Anne Raymond present their drawings, from early formative stages to the mature works of both artists.

Many of Demetrios’ early drawings are simple sketches - the workings out of ideas that ended up as paintings or were intended to be painted. The drawings of Lee-Anne are more carefully and completely realised overall.

After a 2009 exhibition of their art both artists had a negative encounter with Australia’s above-the-law judicial system, a system that is overseen only by itself, meaning a judicial institution that functions outside the law because it alone can decide what laws bind it (Australia has no Parliamentary sovereignty meaning the courts can make things up as they go). This negative encounter with Australia’s judiciary is expressed by Lee-Anne in her “Red Mass Series” with caustic images which illustrate the judiciary’s religious - irrational - orientation. The works in this series were recently painted and exhibited at SOL Gallery in Melbourne in 2024.

The same negative encounter with the Australian judicial system has, with regard to Demetrios, resulted in him largely creating digital images from 2011 - 2023 His caustic anti-judicial works are therefore digital. Only recently has he begun to draw again. And, as he has no workable studio, and therefore no real prospect of painting his ideas, he has spent more time finessing his drawingsthan he has in the past.

Both artists are influenced by the works of earlier surrealists, Lee-Anne by Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington and Dorothea Tanning, while Demetrios’ early influences were Dalì, Magritte and Bellmer. His current oeuvre carries on a direction not too dissimilar to that of Felicien Rops (his Sataniques and Diaboliques), and Alfred Kubin.

The works of both artists oscillate between arbitrary surrealist juxtapositions and symbolism. The fin-de-siècle Decadents (symbolists) are as much an inspiration to both as are the surrealists.

Demetrios’ drawings are usually rudimentary sketches - the workings out of ideas that end as paintings. Above study for, and painting of centrifugal auto-replicating canibaliser, 2001

Lee-Anne’s’ drawings are careful renderings of her ideas, from which the paintings (generally) do not stray. Above, drawing and painting of Submersible Journey Machine, 2000.

The effects of Australia’s judiciary on both artists can be seen in the resultant works, both in their subject matter, and the media used. Above left, an anti-judicial digital work by Demetrios. Above right, an anti-judicial painting by Lee-Anne. Both artists use the symbols of the judicial institution against itself. It took until 2022 for Lee-Anne to resume painting again after (over) a decade of producing only drawings. And it took until 2023 for Demetrios to begin to draw again after (over) a decade of creating primarily digital works - his last paintings having been completed in 2010.

The book Post Humanist Transhumanist by both artists can be bought on Amazon

More of the artists’ work can be found at:

vakras.com

leeanneart.com

leeannesurreal.com

digitalsurrealism.com

Lee-Anne on instagram

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