Michael McGregor: Memories of Hydra

Made on the island in rapid fire succession in the days before the release of The Greece Notebook (published by Hyper Hypo in 2023), Memories of Hydra is composed of point-and-shoot drawings and off-the-cuff prose, quiet observations and imagined histories related to the island’s cultural pedigree. A love letter to a place that has brought McGregor much joy and light.

Peppered with homages to cultural icons who were struck by Hydra’s mystique and on whose work the island in turn left an impression — from Ghikas to Henry Miller, Leonard Cohen and Patrick Leigh Fermor — combining wit with sentiment, vibrant colors with raw, energetic lines.

From the artist: “I remember walking down the hill from Four Corners to Kamini, bewildered by the sun and the sweltering heat… I saw a young girl picking berries from the bushes and eating them, her face covered in the red purple and blue. She looked happy and when I passed her I saw that her T-shirt read “Happy”.

The book represents an essential part of the artist’s practice, when he is away from his studio in LA. Sketchbooks and loose pieces of hotel stationery become the main outlets for new ideas and observations. Memories of Hydra continues the artist’s proactive approach of publishing site specific sketchbooks, in full, which provide a peek into his work outside the studio. Those sketchbooks, in turn, inform larger works on canvas created when the memory wanes and becomes hazier.