Costas Spathis’ Glitter (2025, Photography) distills the essence of a crowded beach into an almost otherworldly abstraction of color, light, and minimalism. Shot from an overhead perspective, the image reduces the shoreline to three distinct planes: the vast turquoise expanse of water in the foreground, the neutral beige of sand above it, and a delicate scattering of colorful umbrellas and tiny figures where the two meet.

The umbrellas, scattered like sequins, punctuate the sand with dots of vibrant pinks, blues, yellows, and purples, resembling jewels or glitter dust strewn across a pale canvas. Their repetition and variation transform a familiar summer scene into a playful study of geometry and rhythm. Meanwhile, the emptiness of the water and sand amplifies the sense of scale, isolating human activity within a monumental field of pure color.

In Glitter, Spathis turns leisure into spectacle, reframing the ordinary as extraordinary through aerial reduction. The work captures the duality of mass gathering and personal solitude, while celebrating the beauty of randomness shaped by human presence. What begins as a beach day becomes, through Spathis’ lens, a cosmic constellation of color shimmering against the infinite.