Ζήνα Αθανασιάδου Art Gallery
IMPRINTS OF NATURE
A quasi-diary
I began to work alfresco in Anavyssos in the fall of 1991. Fences, weeds, pieces of wood in the shade or in the light were all in my field of vision, details from a warm and familiar landscape. From the initial small drawings and pastels I carried over this almost naturalistic sensation to larger oil paintings.
In winter, when I began to work with mixed media in my studio, nature functioned as a memory. Plaster, pine needles and seaweed now hinted at a fragmentary, alienated nature – nature as experienced by city people.
In the fall I travelled to Pompeii and was fascinated by the thick red of the murals. I added this to my canvas as a hint at a monumental figurative painting. (Perhaps in an attempt to crystallise a sense of freedom and randomness?)
For me nature has no nationality. It is an age-old memory. At the same time, it condenses my mood of the moment. As I went on I sought help from the saying of the dark Ephesian – “Nature loves to hide”. So it was the molecular aspect of things as a persistent interplay between the inside and the outside. In this body of work, this is reflected in the division of my canvas into a dark and a bright section. There, the internal condition and the external reference undermine each other until they finally merge.
Marigo Kassi