Towards a better verbal understanding of what I do I shall be making additions to my artist statement as I work:
2020:
I often like to point out that there is something common between recreational drugs, sex, food and art. Of course I am referring only to the higher, the best of their kind. They all offer a sense of joy and nourishment, physical and mental. I think that the aspect of mental nourishment derives from a sense of exaltation.
When one has experienced any of the aforementioned, one is momentarily moved psychologically, in a manner capable of changing one’s perception of reality, similar to a sense of experiencing something that is simultaneously familiar and completely new. There is a contradiction there, but it renders the whole notion all the more important. The unfamiliar, when perceived with an open mind, is mesmerising. It is the reason why we love traveling. It is also akin to the way small children experience the world, when everything is new and exiting.
We experience the new and exiting with more that one sense. Imagine yourselves walking in a new neighborhood, eating new food or having sex with a new lover for the first time. The whole body moves so that the senses can take in all the new stimuli.
A work of art always carries something a bit unfamiliar. The best films, books, paintings and sculptures one can see multiple times and they will always make a new impression.
As a maker, I am particularly interested in processes. I enjoy crating a piece as much as I enjoy looking at the finished product. Very often my work comprises of two features, one that comes from within and one that comes from without. I am interested in primal cultures, in their notion of magic, of fetish, of the idea of a witch-doctor, masks, costumes, representations of divine and monstrous. I approach these subjects with a semi-automatic process, making them my own. Although during the making the object feels entirely familiar, once completed an aspect of unfamiliarity emerges, as if the work is partially someone else’s and there lies the major point of interest.
Thus unfamiliarity becomes a main referent.
2014:
1: I love books and films, and despite the fact that the objects I make do not change within time, I do require from my viewer- as I function during their making- a similar way of perception as of books and films. There are lots of things happening in a each work, so to see it for what it truly is, one must not only look at it from a distance as a whole, but also go closer, observe every little detail and keep all of them in mind. Only then the experience is whole. Like one of these old-school, weird experimental films I love so much.- 25/03/14
My practice spreads around a lot of different disciplines and media. If I had to define my main referents I would have to say something very general like that I am interested in the way my contemporary environment stimulates me visually and mentally. I try to process all these objective facts through my subjectivity and produce a new object to effect and exhilarate the viewer’s critical ability. At the same time I try to find the place where objectivity and subjectivity overlap. I consider visual art as a non-linguistic communicational process with the potential to trigger thoughts and emotions. This goal is educative in a manner, but I see myself more as a provocateur than an educator. While studying for the master’s course in W.C.A. I was sort of accused on having a too broad field of literary research, as if I was trying to define what constitutes a work of art. I can’t say I disagree with this statement, nor do I see a fault in this. I can’t promise that I will narrow down my research on one aspect of my work. I care about politics, not in the sense that I support a political party, but in the way politics reflect the human situation. I am also inquiring on what it is to be a female artist ( I believe men and women are equal as human beings but not the same and that the differences are a product of physical, psychological and social reasons). My work has references to pop art, contemporary Asian art and archaic art. I like clear forms, vibrant colors and transformation of meaning through the image. It is often autobiographical and/or autopsychographical. My figures are most often feminine or hermaphroditic and sexually charged. I also care about the representation of movement and liquid forms in static images. I am a big fan of science-fiction and make allusions to this as well from time to time. Humor is another intrinsic value of my work, although it is often included within an ominous or disconcerting atmosphere. I try to take in account people’s opinion and reactions on my work, so as to get a better idea of the qualities that are objective and these that are too personal to be perceived by others.
My soft sculptures question the traditional conception of sculpture as a heavy, manly, down to Earth form of art. They are light and sensual, inviting the spectator to experience them not only through vision, like the sculptures one can see in museums or academic institutions, but touch them and thus trigger new trains of thoughts through movement, texture and depth. My first experience of the potential of fabrics in art was through the work of Louise Bourgeois. Since I included textiles and soft materials in my work I have found, studied and alluded in many more artists, some of them being Mike Kelley, Charlemagne Palestine, Tracey Emin, Christo and Jean Claude.
In 2005-2006 while I was trying to find my own visual expression and leave the studio where we studied sculpture and drawing with a live model, I started keeping small sketchbooks with daily doodles. They evolved into collections of drawings within specific contexts each time and I consider every sketchbook to be an independent work of art. Being an avid reader I am used to flipping pages and acquiring a unified idea of a book. I think that my sketchbooks function in a similar way. Some drawings might be more interesting than others, but the over-all experience is that of an individual work of art.
In 2008 I started drawing on postcards I found at touristic places or large commercial shops like Ikea. All these images are made for mass consumption. Some times they are smart and sometimes they are absolute rubbish. Every time, though, people buy postcards. They are one of the most common aesthetic objects. This is the reason why I decided to start these series of works. I am intrigued by the way a picture is edited for mass consumption and how I can alter the meaning by adding elements and, in effect, layers of perception. People who saw them expressed an eagerness to see similar work in a larger scale. Later I found some frames, then got my hands on some fine quality printed fabrics (very often I collect materials from the street and let it play a decisive role in the work I will make) and oil colors provided by the school of Fine Arts and started experimenting. I am not yet very confident about my paintings. I know how to make them interesting but technique-wise I think I have some way to go. The artists that have been my major influences in painting are Yoshitomo Nara and Frida Kahlo.
Lately I have developed an interest in digital media, but the things I make in Photoshop, Illustrator and Sculptris so far seem to me to be mere experiments in style. Graphic designers that saw my drawings suggested that I work on them further with digital media. When I tried to do this it had the reverse effect in me. I find no interest at all in reworking on a drawing digitally, but great interest in making a digital drawing and reworking on it as a physical object.
Currently I am working on the transformation of clothing into works of art by altering their proportions and attributes. This project is still in an infantile stage, but it continues the soft wall pieces I made in the past. It is a subject that merges a lot things I have used in past works, like the existence of a living model as part of the work, clothing as canvas, the perception of scale in sculpture and the utility object striped of its function.