In 2005, Botsoglou started a series of watercolors and constructions, a kind of visual diary that he revisits every summer. The watercolors make a collection, a record of the moments spent next to the sea at Petri on the island of Mytilini. He focuses on details: a few shells, small pieces of driftwood, small rock formations. The works start at the seashore and are finished in the studio. In a playful way, the artist captures with directness and freshness the small, momentary pleasurable moments of his summer vacation and appropriately gives them the title Tou Gialou (Of the Seashore).
The watercolors constitute a sequence in an almost archival way, reminiscent of the artist’s other thematic sequences. The works are numbered and dated to indicate their chronological succession. As with his more well-known series – for example Liotrivia (Oil Pressing Factories) and his self-portraits – their structure as a sequence as well as their autobiographical character is typical of Botsoglou’s work. In the series Tou Gialou (Of the Seashore), the artist explores his everyday life, his environment, his life context, his experienced space.
What distinguishes these watercolors from the other series is their playful character, which is often emphasized by the words written on the work itself. The light, translucent medium of the watercolor is appropriately used to record the unfiltered pleasure of relaxing moments on the seashore, a celebration of the notion of the Greek summer that the artist shares with so many of the viewers of his work.