Throughout my artistic journey, I have tried to preserve my freedom of expression. I have never felt the need to follow the trends of my time or adapt my work to the expectations of the market or the art establishment.
For the same reason, the thoughts I share here do not necessarily follow a chronological order. I prefer to write about whatever I feel needs to be said at a particular moment. Perhaps these texts function much like my works themselves—as milestones in an ongoing search.
Aegina
The current body of work began to take shape several years ago in my previous studio on the island of Aegina.
I felt the need to move away from Athens and found a large space in a former police station, in a village overlooking the foothills of the Temple of Aphaia. The stillness of the landscape and the slower rhythm of life allowed me to observe more closely and to think differently.
At that time, I was constantly hearing about climate change, the transformation of our planet, and an uncertain future. I began wondering how many times the Earth had already changed throughout its history—and how many more times it would change again.
What if a civilization were to disappear once more?
What would remain?
What memories could survive?
Findings
The first images that appeared in my mind were neither landscapes nor human figures.
They were strange forms, like capsules preserving information. Small organisms or objects carrying memories, protected within an aquatic environment, as if waiting for a new beginning.
I began painting them without really knowing what they were.
As I worked, I gradually realized something I had never consciously planned.
They did not belong to the present.
They seemed to come from a time that had not yet existed while, at the same time, preserving traces of a very distant past.
At that moment I understood that I was not creating images of the future.
I was creating findings.
Findings from a future that never happened.
Time
Whenever I work, I feel as though I am constantly moving in two directions. I take imaginary steps into the future, return to the past, and eventually find myself back in the present.
“Perhaps this is my own way of existing within a time that does not exist.”
From that moment on, I began to think of every work not as an object, but as a finding.
A trace.
A memory.
A piece of evidence.
Whether it comes from a civilization that disappeared or from one that has yet to be born is ultimately of little importance.
Matter
As the work evolved, I noticed that many of these forms were asking to acquire physical volume.
I found myself sketching sculptural forms on canvas and increasingly felt the need to bring them into three-dimensional space.
Later, I realized that this impulse had always been part of me. Perhaps it began when I was making jewellery. Perhaps even earlier, when, as a child, drawing alone was never enough and I constantly wanted to build objects with my hands.
Today, painting, sculpture and artists’ books are not separate forms of expression for me. They are different manifestations of the same investigation.
The Studio
For me, the studio is not a place where artworks are produced.
It is a place of research.
It is where ideas are tested, fail, transform, and sometimes take physical form.
Perhaps this is, in the end, the true subject of my work.
Not the making of objects.
But the search for forms that seem to emerge from a memory we have not yet lived.
