It all started with a Hellenistic bronze head representing the god Hypnos, which is located in the British Museum. Euphrosyne Doxiadi wanted to give a contemporary substance to this distant symbol through her painting, creating nine depictions of Hypnos in modern natural environments, inspired by famous classical or Roman sculptures, but with a reference to antiquity: the use of tetrachromy as it was perceived then, with black, white, ochre, and deep red generating countless other colors that harmonize with the human body and the Mediterranean landscape. The nine works have Homeric skies, strong historicity, and realism under a silvery light of dreams, aiming to divert the mind from a uniform and static surface, from an aesthetic without blood. "To bring ancient sculptures to life, to give them flesh and blood, was a challenge for me, something I had longed to do for many years."

The painter approached Vangelis Chatzigiannidis, with whom she had collaborated by illustrating his short stories in "Natural Histories" (Rodakio, 2006). She asked him to transfer her nine images into prose, weaving a story.

As the artworks and the narrative progressed, a diverse complicity was born between the painter and the writer. And to accompany the exhibition at the Athens Art Hall, this book was created, which, like old Japanese books, opens like an accordion and can be read from both sides, starting from the end towards the beginning.

We wanted this purely Greek product to become exportable with the assistance of Anne Marie Stanton-Ife, who has translated Vangelis Chatzigiannidis' two novels, "The Four Walls" (Rodakio, 2000) and "The Guest" (Rodakio, 2004), for Marion Boyars Publishing House in London.