And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

“O morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug,” wrote Franz Kafka in The Metamorphosis. “He lay on his armorhard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, fl ickered helplessly before his eyes.” Kafka’s nightmarish tale captures the essence of unexpected uncontrollable life-defi ning horror, likely caused by Gregor Samsa’s inability to cope with societal and family pressures. His predicament, much like any severe disfi guring and disabling illness, would isolate and eventually kill him. Transformative experiences have been the domain of poets and artists alike because artistic sensibility heightens awareness of reality, prompting them to seek a better or more comprehensible alternative. Such seems to be the goal of Stelios Faitakis, who from his native Greece has set out to understand and convey to all a meaningful version of the world around him. “I was raised in the west suburbs of Athens,” recounted Faitakis in a 2007 interview, “a place occupied mostly by the working class.” A serious injury during childbirth left him with substantial paralysis of the right arm and, despite extensive surgical and other interventions, it would limit his activities, including painting, to his left arm. “Both my parents were workers in a gold chain factory.... They are not what we’d call ‘artists,’ although when I see my mother creating new designs... my artistic nature has some root there.... Also my grandfather... was a good draftsman.... I have painted since childhood.” Overcoming family opposition, Faitakis found his way into the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Athens, where he set out on his artistic journey, guided as much by his affi nity to mathematics as by Eastern mysticism. Suspicious of authority and large organized institutions, he is self-reliant and openly critical of political oppression. “As long as I can remember, I’ve been an anarchist.” He views art as an inclusive and enlightening agent. His fi rst efforts to reach the public came as graffi ti―in the streets of his hometown and later on the walls of the Academy. “Working for the public for me means mostly painting