What is your work about?
My work begins at the point where sculpture touches painterly nuances as an unfolding sketchbook of our everyday reality in physical space. Everyday paraphernalia are altered and placed into different material dimensions, while paint brush-strokes move from the sculptures onto surrounding structures in a continual process of formal metamorphosis. The theatrical dialogue between domestic elements like a staircase, a wall, the outline of a corner, my blouse, an arm, weaves together the internal and external. Through fragments of mundane objects and bodily gestures the potential of a whole is hinted at, prompting viewers to project their own physical presence. In this way sculptural objects mine the borderlands between human body and physical space while I create shifting relationships between representation, abstraction, and materiality.
Artist Statement
With my installations I seek to expand notions of displacement, reformulate our environment, and investigate the fragmentary nature of memory both as personal images in the mind and as actual objects and situations. From this, multiple thematic routes are articulated as my journey in life slips into my work. I believe in art that demands awareness of space and time, where the personal touches the common, where noise shifts recognizability and silent moments take off.
In my practice I use basic sculptural materials like clay, wood, and plaster juxtaposed with everyday ephemera like vinyl, dust, and metal rods. I am interested in the constant challenge of using these materials to create a variation of frequencies and movement within a space. I am particularly fascinated with clay as a natural malleable material that carries time in its essence. I experience clay as a meditative medium that operates as a simulacrum for other materials such as wood, cement, fabric, and paper, one that invites me to slow down during the process of hand sculpting, and one that encourages viewers to contemplate on the material history of the objects viewed.
Work (img. 1 –12) focuses on the element of movement, as quotidian items are captured in various states of change and brush strokes touch the wall. There one can find no hierarchy in the overall structures. The outline of a room, where a construction site blends with an archeological excavation site, allows elements of everyday life to be woven with the physical and psychological space. This work layers light colors to collapse the line between fragment and sculpture. Serving as a three-dimensional collage that alludes to the poles of failure and perfection, raw materials like unfired clay, marble, sheet rock and wood contrast with kitchen towels and household paint.
Recent work invites viewers to contemplate the way history may repeat itself. In “Today as Tomorrow’s History” (installation of five distinct sculptures: img. 13-17) I dismantle classicism to consider rejected ideals of beauty once symbolized by the flawless, fabricated marble column. Within this transitional sociopolitical period in my home country of Greece I create a utopian architecture using forms as skeletons, as basic structures that echo the past and suggest a shift in the perceptions of our current reality. Amidst global rioting and countries in economic despair, my work plays on objects found in the contemporary ruins of social unrest while referring to the act and ritual of archeological excavation.
The installation “Constructed Diversion” (img. 18) depicts a domestic structure unsettled in its foundations. The potential for a full body is hinted at through sculptural remnants – a limb, or face in reference to Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” (img. 19). In “Artist’s Materials Chamber” (img. 20) a pair of ceramic gloves lies on the base of the sculpture, on a surface layered with clay that flows up the sides of the structure to the top. The suspended box shown contains fragments of the sculptural materials with which I currently work offering a comprehensive view of my practice in its rawest state.
CV
EDUCATION
2012
MFA in Visual Arts, Columbia University, New York, US
2005
BFA, Athens School of Fine Arts, Athens, Greece
2003
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, UK
RESIDENCIES
2014
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, US
2012
Lab Residency at The Watermill Center (NY) and
The Norwegian Theatre Academy, Fredrikstad, Norway
2009
AZB Plastiker Guest-atelier (full stipend), Zurich, Switzerland
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2014
Pre-Text, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, with the support of neon.org.gr Athens
No Rules Can Rule When The Doors Are Closed, Torrance Shipman, Brooklyn, New York (curated)
2013
Now and Then, European Central Bank Collection, Frankfurt am Main
DAS and Irini Miga: Stage for a Journey, ReMap4, Athens (collaborative project)
In Praise of Chance and Failure, Family Business, New York (co-curated/w Nadja Argyropoulou)
Group Mountain, Athens
2012
2012 Columbia MFA Thesis Show, Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, New York
Outside Mediation, Green Hall Gallery, Yale University, New Haven
Contemporary Ceramics, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York
2011
Conceptual Romantic, with Ann Craven, curated by Gea Politi, CONDUITS (IT), ReMap3, Athens (two-person show)
DESTE Prize 2011, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
3rd Thessaloniki Biennale, Thessaloniki
The Location of Culture, Pulchri Studio, The Hague
Noor: Death in Jaipur, ReMap3, Athens
First Year MFA Exhibition, Wallach Gallery, New York
Winter Lounge, Le Roy Neiman Gallery, New York
Contemporary Woman in Greece, The Hub, Athens
2010
Rrripp!!! Paper Fashion, Museum Bellerive, Zurich
Of The Moment, The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago Contemporary Art Museum, Chicago (benefit)
Peri Erotos, 6D.O.G.S., Athens
2009
The Beautiful is just the First Degree of Terrible, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki
Bloodsport, ReMap2, Athens
Rrripp!!! Paper Fashion, Mode Museum Provincle Antwerp, Belgium
At Home He is a Tourist, Playroom, Athens
2008
And now? Panorama, State Museum of Contemporary Art,Thessaloniki
Rrripp!!! Paper Fashion, MUDAM Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Wittingly, Sparkling, Greedy Dimples, The Breeder, Athens (solo show)
2007
Echoes’ Prelude, Side 2, Tokyo (solo show)
True Romance, The Breeder, Athens (co-curated)
Rrrippp!!! Paper Fashion, Benaki Museum, Athens
Tenderloin, The Breeder, ReMap1, Athens
I Sigxroni Elliniki Skini, Helexpo Garage, Athens
2006
Panic Room, Works by the Dakis Joannou Collection, Deste Foundation, Athens
All that remains is future, Palaio Arsakeio, Patra
Architectural Transparencies, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens
Black and White, Hellenic American Union, Athens
2005
New Acquisitions, The Dakis Joannou Collection, The Athenaeum Intercontinental, Athens
2004
3rd Biennale of Greek Universities of Fine Arts, Creta Maris Hotel, Crete
2003
International Exchange and Guest Students exhibition, Central Saint Martins College, London
11th Biennale of Young Artist from Europe and the Mediterranean, Athens
AWARDS
2011
DESTE Prize 2011, shortlisted
2010 – 2011
The Fulbright Grant
2011 -2012
Neiman Center, Columbia University
2010 – 2012
Joan Sovern Sculpture Award
2010 – 2012
The Andrew Fisher Fellowship Fund
2000 – 2002
IKY, Award for Academic Performance, Greek State Scholarships Foundation