October 07, 2026
by MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art
October 1, 2026 – January 31, 2027
[…] In the dream where I was walking, everything looked like unanswered questions at bus stops. When I wake up, I won’t remember any of it. And yet, for many years, the truth was pounding in my heart. I just wanted to sleep, because it suited me. Perhaps that’s why the best poems don’t simply leave us with unanswered questions. They change the way we ask the questions. And that is already a form of knowledge, even if it isn’t the ultimate truth.
K.BHTA, July 2026
Without Corners, Midsummer Impasse, Until You Come Back, Blue Tree: these are some of the titles of the paintings that K. BHTA is presenting to the public for the first time at MOMUS–Museum of Contemporary Art, in the Case Studio space, as part of the exhibition “Only the Coastline Remains”, from 1 October 2026 to 31 January 2027. The exhibition also serves as the opening event of the programme for the 61st Dimitria Festival organised by the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
And whilst these titles may be read as titles of artworks, they also sound like lyrics. The title of the exhibition itself is a lyric. Their “melodies” are conveyed in the paintings through the colours, frames, forms and elements that make up the works.
Known to the public primarily as a musician and lyricist, K. BHTA has, from time to time, also pursued a parallel career in the visual arts. His connection with the visual arts began during his education, with studies in painting and art history in Melbourne, where he was born, and continues through his personal study and systematic artistic practice.
Some twenty years after his first solo exhibition in 2005 at the Center of Contemporary Art — now MOMUS-Experimental Center for the Arts — K. BHTA returns to the city with a series of painterly, dreamlike images. The works in the exhibition date from 2019 to the present day and reveal a different, yet deeply related, aspect of his artistic practice.
Drawing on Symbolism and the naïve painters of the 20th century, K. BHTA creates a vividly coloured and personal universe. Within this, human solitude coexists with poetry and melancholy, yet also with a subtle, hidden optimism: the hope that people, even within an imaginary landscape, will one day come together.
The mountains, trees, waters and sky depicted in the works do not refer to any specific geographical location. They are distorted, simplified and transformed in order to convey emotions such as isolation, anxiety, serenity, nostalgia or the fear of death.
Solitary figures or groups of people — friends, lovers, siblings — are moving or standing still, observing and gazing. They are frozen in a still, timeless moment. The colours — pink, green, blue, purple, ochres, amongst others — appear in their most vivid yet most delicate forms. They do not conform to the realism of an actual landscape, but are freely chosen according to their emotional and thematic function. Thus, the place we see remains open-ended: we do not know whether it is real, imaginary, dreamlike or nightmarish.
As viewers, we are called upon to make our own connections and to situate the images where they resonate with our own inner world. Perhaps this is also one of the most essential elements of contemporary visual art and, in particular, of K. BHTA’s work: the artist’s need to engage with the dreams, aspirations and disappointments of the person standing before a painting.
Artistic Direction: Thouli Misirloglou, Artistic Director of MOMUS–Museum of Contemporary Art
Curated by: Theodore Markoglou, Art Historian, Curator at MOMUS
Production: Municipality of Thessaloniki and MOMUS–Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the 61st Dimitria Festival
Consult this link for further information:https://www.momus.gr/en/exhibitions/kbita-mono-i-aktogrammi-menei
