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Artist Statement:
Statement:
…a magical reality where
everything – clear and true,
outside time and space,
‘beyond all physical and
palpable reality,’ a mirror
which deforms life, an instant
reflected – is possible. Goya
I believe that an artist has
something to say or to point
out, both to the artist or the
viewer – ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
Upcoming Exhibits:
Ico Gallery – Solo Exhibit –
New York City. September
2009.
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Past Solo Exhibits:
Icosahedron Gallery-
Explorations – Solo Exhibit –
N.Y. Dec. 2- 21, 2008.
Broadway Gallery. N.Y.
December 21, 2007 – Jan. 3,
2008
Kaya. New Jersey – December
16 – 24, 2007
Gallery 24. New York, April
4 – April 27...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Gallery Representation - Ico
Gallerie, NYC.
Personal Website -
www.melanieprapopoulos.com ...
Further Information
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Melanie Prapopoulos:
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Melanie Prapopoulos
“Mo’ Explorations”
One constant in these pieces that is a strong theme throughout much of Melanie Prapopoulos’s work is a dreamy abstraction. Like dreams, there are strong feelings and energy that appear to lack logical organization. But as Prapopoulos is clearly aware, dreams, emotion, and feeling are not in anyway based in the confines of logic. This is not to say that what you see in her work is confused or unclear. On the contrary, there is something quite focused and instinctive about their expression. They conjure up recognizable moods and feelings in ways that are hard to verbally express yet are intuitively communicative.
A major element present in this collection of abstracts is visual distortion. By this, I refer to a single color web appearing to cover harmonious color pools below. This is evident in pieces like “[P]romises [K]ept,” and “Mo’ Red – Take Some Time To Think About It,” “Mo’ Blue – In The Mix.” These distortions act as an intrusion on the world within the paintings, as a distraction to the beauty below. You could interpret this in many ways. Are we viewing a dream world disrupted by the waking world? Is emotional purity being tainted by soured human interaction? Is the world getting too crazy? I don’t know, but it’s not the specifics on who, what, when, and where because whatever the case, the feeling is the same. Specific feelings can be triggered by different circumstances and as Prapopoulos illustrates, similarly depicted visual foreground distortion and distraction can arise in different circumstances as depicted in the varying background color abstractions.
But like life, this series of paintings flows from distraction to focus. The times of focus feel tranquil and centered like “Gold Abstract - Peace on Kavalloti Street” where the distorted counterparts create a visual tension as in “Mo’ Red – Take Some Time To Think About It.” The title of the latter could not suggest this tension more. Prapopoulos is interested in the way the mind works and in this case, she explores the clash between sense, logic, emotion, and confusion, visually illustrating the disorder and conflict that goes on inside.
With her Gold Abstracts she does indeed pursue the less volatile side of the emotional ebb and flow. There is peace and meditative simplicity to these paintings. The gold color palette indicates warmth, beauty, and value. These qualities hold positive aesthetic and for Prapopoulos, emotional value. These are the times of rest and of healing. They are the times that enable one to endure and continue to experience what is to come. The titles reflect this in between time. “Peace on Kavalloti Street,” “Seeking What Is Hidden,” and “Waiting,” all suggest the center in the pendulum swing of feeling. In these three pieces there is tranquility as tones and colors lurk below reminding of the exploration that has passed and the emotional voyage to come.
“Explorations 7” suggests a journey in an unknown space. The swirls of color remind of the ether in outer space. In the context of this series, this exploration draws connection between a journey through the mind and soul with an extra-terrestrial mission. This comparison holds many logical connections. Again, the laws that govern the reality of humans are suspended in the emotional realm and in places not of this world. There is a loss of gravity or grounded-ness in emotional and space exploration. There is constant unknown and a thirst for discovery.
“Explorations 8” comes as the last piece in this collection and sequentially following not only the other “Explorations” piece but the series in total, we are left to believe that the journey is not over. The tone and color scheme of “Explorations 8” is hopeful and ambivalent but hardly an answer. One journey leads into another and the process of being human and experiencing life never ends, it only leads to new chapters. Prapopoulos knows that. She wants to share that with you. She utilizes paint as the words to engage your eyes in discussion.
-Chris Brunelle Queens, NY
Born in England, Melanie Prapopoulos was raised in the United States and studied Art History and Literature of Latin America and the Caribbean; she currently resides in Greece where the meeting with the Greek world has revealed an inexhaustible source of inspiration to the artist.
A vivid creativity and a rare artistic sensibility allow Prapopoulos - who moves with great spontaneity from the pure abstractionism to the figurative and from the informal to the surrealistic - to combine elements tied to the mythology, the history and the traditions of ancient cultures: Egyptians, Greeks and above all Latin American, and to translate them into the present time and to give sense to an often ignored but universal reality. The author, in fact, firmly believes in the prerogative of the artist to give form to meanings, thoughts, feelings that not only belong to her interiority but also believes that they have to be revealed, pointed out and transmitted to others.
In Prapopoulos’ artworks the abstract and figurative dimension dialogue in intimate harmony thanks to the skilful hand of the artist who masterly applies the thickness and the force of the paint-brush, the formal compositions, the colours, the signs and the textures. The author has in the light, in the colour, in the pictorial sign and in the free gestuality her most significant artistic attributes: luminosity and tonal scale reveal suggestions, enchantments, traces of antique ages harmonically mixed on the canvas. Also the attention towards not noble materials like wood, fabric, shells, found by chance and then inserted in the paintings, is a fundamental aspect of Prapopoulos’ painting, showing how important is the experimental component in her creative process. Refusing to accept limitating art theories or rules to her imagination and pursuing a completely personal style, the artist, free to follow her own visual intuitions and her pulses, uses with confidence various expressive media such as oil, acrylic, watercolour, charcoal, pastel, ink and collage.
Even though in the paintings there is always present a narrative motif, the author leaves autonomy to the viewer’s interpretation and invites an immersion in an interior journey in which they are emotionally solicited from aesthetic and psychological impulses towards the artwork, through signs, symbols and words.
The series of works presented in Ferrara, “Lexsis”, demonstrates how deeply the author is tied to the history of art and to the literature of Latin America and how she manages to transform and retranslate, according to her own aesthetic, artistic and psychological intuitions, the inspiring motifs she draws.
The fact “Lexsis”, that is “Words”, in Greek, are terms from which can come innumerable interpretations and meanings, explains the presence, in many of these works, of words, fragments from texts or poems – often taken from the Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen – to which however the author adds personal thoughts, feelings and intuitions related to a certain period of her life.
Particularly original is the tonal scale Prapopoulos uses: often, in fact, works are calibrated on shades of colour and delicate tonal modulations until achieving results near monochromatic.
“By a Simple Force”, the large image published here in catalogue, is realized through luminous and brilliant colours; sudden lighting of warm colours, like red and yellow, spring from the depth of the intense blue background; at the centre of the painting, the slightly outlined silhouette of a probably Aztec personage, bursts an extraordinary spiritual force.
The symbolism, both pre-Hispanic, drawn on the Aztec and Maya world and connected to the dramatic history of the Mexican Conquest, and the contemporarian, assume an essential role in the series we are taking in consideration.
The singular art of this refined and passionate painter, who merges the component of a personal figuration with the deep psychological elaboration, arouses considerations and reflections about the past but also becomes a stimulus towards a search that aims to understand the present in its complexity, creates paintings that could be a useful starting point for debate and exchanges to which the same Prapopoulos will take part.
Paola Trevisan
Website: www.melanieprapopoulos.com
A point of encounter between line and colour, a tacit space that allows us to enter, to explore, to think, there is research among different mediums, a strong research for the communication in ethereal ways. Almost unperceivable and sometimes strongly underlined, Prapopolous constantly brings in elements of her studies, her interests without ever blocking gestures that come from a more -deeper self.
Her words, through painting are messages that can be read from various levels and to times from parallel positions, and can be perceived with extreme softness, as well as pure strength.
There is an ability of saying things in a balanced way, it is clear that Prapopolous is constantly trying to contrast her own works in the eternal research for equilibrium. Bringing back existential, spiritual atmospheres through colour and composition, the physical gesture becomes the voice, the colour the message.
Her “Miel Fuego” series are warm and intense, like a calm voice saying important things in a way that they are heard. “Rooms of thought” series is her strongest abstract work, a settled and aesthetic series of artworks that outlines a space, a mental space in order to capture it, to unveil its abstractness and discover its form.
“Ode to Hellas” is a perfect example of the marriage between her abstract language and the figurative one, important to underline that the figures are however always dressed with the abstract dress, like an image we can see from far away understanding its identity but without perceiving it, in its entireness.
“Lexis” series are those more related to her interest in South America. In fact the symbolism is a very specific and particular element of these artworks almost to confirm that when an artist feels identify with a language it becomes natural to speak it.
I believe it is important the research through various mediums but it is also important to give the most energy to our best spoken language; I believe Melanie Prapopoplous is a painter with the force of bringing together settled elements in one composition for us to receive a message.
Sandra Miranda
Florence Biennale Coordinator
Artistic Director d-side Art
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