FINGERING OUT

Work made in the studio and was presented in Bow Arts Open exhibition.

FINGERING OUT
sculptures made off latex, plaster and air-drying clay

LACRIMOSA - SOUVENIR

Recent work made in the studio and presented in Bow Arts Trust exhibition.

LACRIMOSA:
Sculpture made of expanding foam, plastic balloon, scraps of latex, acrylics, glossy varnish.

SOUVENIR
Old sculpture appropriated in a new context made of latex, plaster, acrylics string.

OPENMINDED

Experimental work made in the studio and presented in Bow Arts Trust Exhibition.The work is still in process.

The sculpture is made from air-drying reinforced clay, acrylics, varnish and latex.

FINGERING OUT 2

Work made for Bow Arts Trust Open Studios exhibition

 

HOCKNEY vs BACON

I made this video a few years ago when i was living in Greece. Initially i was reluctant to translate it in english because i was afraid it wouldn't work the same way. Recently i decided to give it a try, so here is my attempt.

The video captivates the loose atmosphere of an after-lunch gathering. But is it loose? What is happening in the center, what is happening at the sides? Is art a serious thing? And most importantly: Hockney or Bacon?

NATASCHA KAMPUS

I often create site-specific ephemeral pieces that are destroyed after the end of an exhibition. This separation from my work, although difficult, gives it an unsettling quality. This collage is an unfinished piece that i intend to develop in the future.

The entrapment of the Chilean miners and the Fritzl case were the 2 incentives for making this collage.

The arrangement of the pictures is not casual, a story is developed from left to the right. The low middle is the point of the highest tension. Towards the edges the tension is more released and an effort for liberation is attempted. Exit on the right?

STUDIO 31

In November of 2010 me and Larry Achiampong were invited to create a live 3-day happening in Katerina Botsari's studio. Katerina asked as to interact with her space and work, using audio and visual elements. I created a mixed medium site-specific installation which was my reaction to the specific space. Once again space directed my solution by triggering my intuition.

View of the studio before the happening.

Inside the studio there was an overabundance of large abstract paintings, bold fabrics, tools, furniture and other materials. Initially i found it hard to function within the given frame. My instinctual reaction was to find a way to separate myself and then i started to work further into the idea of border.

Mixed medium installation made by found and ready-made objects,  painting and drawing on the wall.

Barbed wire, piece of wood, acrylics, colored pencils.

The installation turned out to be an investigation into the concepts of limits and the relationship between the in and the out.

MA FINAL SHOW

For my MA show i created a mixed medium installation inside a white cubic room. It was a combination of drawing, painting, collage and assemblage. During the year of my MA studies i experimented with several concepts and materials. Like in other occasions things started to connect when i viewed the space that i would build my final show. The physicality of the room triggered my intuition and my experimentation met organically in a site-specific installation.

Sculpture made of wet clay, expanding foam, rubber, latex, varnish, acrylics. Dimensions variable.

Painting - Drawing on the wall detail made of colored pencils, acrylics, colored markers.

Sculpture made of latex, plaster, fibre, acrylics.

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, detail from collage. Magazine pictures glued in torn canvas, photos printed from the internet, acrylics, colored pencils, pastels.

MA STUDIES / BODY WITHOUT ORGANS

My work hovers between sculpture, drawing and painting, and it often developes into a mixed media installation that playfully interacts with the space as a picture plain. It blurs the edges between objects and their environment. Depending on the space provided i can exhibit these pieces seperately or -more often- by combining them in mixed medium installations.

In 2009 i created several collages and assemblages.The basic and guttural element of collage in combination with it's quick and urgent nature provided me with the tools i needed in order to investigate violence and deconstruction.

During my MA studies i was influenced by the concept of Body without Organs by Deleuze and Guattari. D&G believe that the human organism is posessed by infinite energy and that sexuality is a flux power circulating the body. Deleuze's analysis speaks about a possibility of a new extended organism that moves beyond the boundaries of the real body, beyond the boundaries of skin. The inside blends with the outside and the organs change places or disappear. A new body landscape is created from the start.

UNDEFINE ARTS / OCTOBER 2008

UNDEFINE ARTS INVITATION

When i was living in Greece i was assistant professor in Vakalo College of Arts and Design. Being a visual artist who was teaching designers, I came up with the idea of a collaborative project: Seven Graphic Design graduates of Vakalo College and seven Fine Arts graduates of Athens University of Fine Arts would investigate for a time period the relationship between Fine and Applied Arts through discussions and personal work. This research would result an exhibition in Vakalo's premises. I curated and organized the project in collaboration with art theoritician George Vlahos.

The 14 artists met several times during the summer of 2008 discussing the connections and the differences between applied and fine arts. The works that were produced, as well as the catalogue of the exhibition were made collaboratively and were the result of the team's  research on the subject.

 

I presented 3 pieces, an old one and 2 new. Gossip magazines and pornography were my main influences. I wanted the pieces to ooze the lavish charm and cruelty of these popular cultures. In my collage and sculptures i appropriated images taken from gossip/ pop magazines addressing the relationship between graphic design and Fine Arts and also between "high" and low culture. With this work i also continued my research on female transgressive sexuality.

Expanding foam, acrylics, glossy enamel, pins, photo cropped from gossip magazine.

General view

Photos taken from gossip magazines, the internet, tape, pins and cardboard.

UNDEFINE ARTS - opening

ANGELS OF VATHIS

One and a half year after Kipseli's exhibition my work had become more sculptural and i had began to work with collage.
Me and 3 other female artists, were invited by curator and artist Antony Vathis to create a piece in his apartment - a process that resulted an exhibition. Each of as occupied a room and worked for a week. The results were 2 wall paintings, 1 performance and 1 sculpture.

I concider my sculpture a reaction to both the concept of the exhibition and to the room itself. Conceptually i created something referential to feminity as an answer to the title of the exhibition and the exclusive participation of female artists. The room was full of books and magazines which i organised like football arena seats. I placed the sculpture on a wall opposite the "seats".

The sculpture was made with expanding foam, acrylic paint, varnish, pins and photos.This piece is significant to me because it was the starting point for my research on issues that i investigated for the next years like sexuality, biology and body boundaries.

KIPSELI'S MARKET EXHIBITION

In January of 2007 i was asked to participate in a group show that took place in the Old Kipseli's Market, by curator Stella Andrioti. The market was about to be demolished for a shopping mall to replace it. Various art events were held at the time within it's premises as means of protest against the demolishion plan. The market was sustained by small equal sized cubical rooms that were traditionaly used by fishermen and butchers.


 

The room in which i exhibited used to be a fisherman's shop and its size was apprx. 3m   x3m. Although one side of the room was open and it had no ceiling, it reminded me of a claustophobic domestic space. I set up an installation off ready-mades trying to create a suffocating domestic environment.

View of the room before the installation

Inside view of the market before the exhibition

ZAIMI 1 APARTMENT / DECEMBER 2006

A few months after my final BA show i was asked to participate to a group exhibition that took place in a vacant apartment in the center of Athens by curators Elina and Dora Theodoropoulou. Every artist had his own room in the apartment where he was asked to develop a piece over a period of 2 weeks. I created a mixed-medium, site-specific installation investigating the relationship between freedom and incarceration.

Painting, drawing, collage, ready-mades.