About

The creation of this collection of artworks was kindled by my boundless admiration for the art of ancient Greek pottery. My first encounter with these vessels, in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, was strange : they swiftly faded from my memory, as often happens with certain artifacts that have that eerie quality that renders them almost invisible. However, the subconscious emotion they left behind and my love of the traditional shadow-theatre - eventually made me look at them again, and to observe the narrative adventure of these self-contained figures floating in the black or red clay body of an amphora, a crater or a cylix. These vessels, buried for centuries next to the people who used to filled them with water or wine, shatter the silence of time and they beautifully narrate the story of a civilization which for the first time in human history dared to question the “what” and the “how” and to directly face the void of existence. The figures we see in these images - conversing with their gods, competing in athletic games, dropping their swords in ecstasy before the beauty of Helen of Troy, dancing and getting drunk - act not from a wish to escape the fleeting world they find themselves in, but to dive down more deeplly within it and grasp its meaning. This series of works seeks to highlight certain moments of innocence and whimsy from those times. These figures give us little information and yet tell so much: they leave much to the imagination, challenging me to be a part of of what precisely happens here and now. The basic materials I use for my works are paper and threads. Paper shares some of the innate qualities of the clay: fragility and sturdiness, power and delicacy. Thread - in its primal function- will cloth and convey the pleats. First, I draw the figures and their setting, along with decorative patterns, on paper. I then cut out the figures and “dress” them with threads. Finally, I move them around until they find their proper place. There is something familiar and pleasant in this procedure, for it takes me back in time, when I used to play with puppets. Now as then, I seek the angle that will place these figures in an interim dreamworld, whence they shall keep telling a story about something that once existed and that shall exist forever.