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 "Sometimes, when I sit here alone between the ruins of the castle, it is like I hear the soldiers coming and going, carrying stuff," says Babis Koiliaris, director of the Public Picture Gallery on Chios, who recently exhibited his artwork in Heraklion, in the Gate of Saint George (Liberty Square).
Although born on Chios in 1958, his roots – on his grandfather's side – are from Crete. Married with his grandmother in the Asia Minor, after the 1922 pogrom, his ancestors had immigrated to Chios Island.
The young artist attended lessons of painting and scenography with Giannis Tsarouhis. Later he worked on hagiography and illustrated books for fairy tales, novels, and documents.
 In all his travels, Mr. Koiliaris had not visited Crete until two years ago, when his two sons came in Heraklion as students. He was so excited with Heraklion’s archaeological grounds, and, of course, with the Gate of Saint George, that he decided to have one of his exhibitions here.
The work that he has chosen to show is, he says, "a portraying work that is separated in three groups". The first group is the "Girls under the sun", placed in the circular area of the Gate. "It's just like dancing in a circle." says the artist.
The second group, called "Posters," features faces and places that provoke aesthetics through the colour or the lines. The lines come from nowhere and they lead you in space and time. "They could be commercial posters," says Mr Koiliaris, "but also a surrealistic view of our journey through time. Time – as it is buckled and warped – presents faces and things travelling through, stamping time with some important or lesser facts."
 The last series is about landscapes of his island of Chios. "I paint ramshackle houses that nobody bothers to fix," he says. “The only thing that I can do is to paint them on my canvass to keep them alive, to remember that sometimes people were coming and going, windows were opening and sheets were spreading in the backyards.”
Leaving the Gate of Saint George after the exhibition, I was emotionally charged. That’s what makes me realize if an exhibition is worthwhile or not. When I watch the tableau and they make me unable to take my eyes off of them. When a painting "captures" me with its simplicity, its everyday moments, with the looks of its people. Like the look of the "Woman at the Washbasin." The ritual of the everyday work accompanied with its sweet boredom.
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