Symbols and myths in the works of the painter Helene Pavlopoulou
Tell us what you do and your beginnings.
I have been dreaming since I remember myself as a painter. I grew up in the country side of Greece—in Thessaly—and I was united with nature. I felt free and part of an eternal delightful paradise and treasure, and this is a motive that influences me in my life and actions. This magnetic field of treasuring and regaining the vision of a mythical world is a nonstop stimulus in my adult view.
On the other hand, I have an entire childhood and adolescence worth of questions considering the unfair suffering of the people, victims of wrong politics.
This basic contradiction has become a parallel and complicated motivation for my creativity.
What does your work aim to say?
My work is a metaphor, an allegoric vision of regaining the fallen and forgotten Ideas, a mythical vocabulary of regeneration of the hidden beauty, a palimpsest of fragments of the historical achievements projected to the future, a thread of Ariadne to get out, to escape of the Labyrinth, of the Matrix, of the vivid virtual reality, an ontological perspective to the inner and the outer world, a philosophical message of the real important, a remembrance activity, a political reflection from the micro history to the History. I name it Palingenesis.
I do the painting because I believe in the body action and I know that painting encapsulates space and time- Spacetime- as magically and mystically, can include the fourth dimension and this is almost metaphysics, an aura of Mystery. An initiation of rethinking Liberty and salvation. Sacred forests and trees, heads of gods, broken dreams, fallen statues of a glorious time, emblematic symbols of Democracy, Aenigma for the future.
Where do you find inspiration for your art?
In vivid History, the crisis of Humanity, the unfair wars, the politics, the genocides, the suffering of the people, the prayer, in the History as part of consciousness and unconsciousness and the DND memory, in masterpieces of Art, in the human stories, in the hidden beauty, in Greek Light, in Mythology and its symbolism, in Philosophy, in love and compassion, in the theory of Archetypes of Carl Young, in Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, in L’Homme Revolte by Albert Camus, in everyday eternal moment, in Beauty, in innocence, in Aegean Sea, in alternation, etc.
Could you give us some insight into your creative process?
I feel like a prism that reflects and analyses the phenomena of contemporary life and my own life into visions of art. Every moment I select images that express and intrigue my fantasy. For a second time, I combine different images in a surrealistic way. I am very much interest in this practice as I let the soul itself to guide the mind and the imagination.
Then the result altered what I suspected and this is what I look for. The surprise with a sense of enigma beyond my convictions.Every time I revolt against myself and what I have already done before. I do not want to repeat my style. Repetition is the end of creativity.Is like a revolution to your mannerism. Every time I work on a theme or a concept and I work on it in the time that the project needs.
I love working in big size works. This helps me to express my gesture and to realize my vision which is often in memorial size. I work in layers of colour alternately on the wall and on the floor and I do like improvise myself and to let the shapes of colour guide me.
I also love musical rhythm in my compositions. I do believe in organic structure and the contradictions of the elements, shapes, lines, tones, and materials. I also like working on relief surfaces. Is like incorporating what mostly matters for my concept. This probably emerges from my profound origin of mother earth.
The most I care about is the atmosphere, the ambient of the work in a whole creation, and the connection and the combination in a series of works and I develop it until its completion.
What are your future projects?
In 2024 I realized three exhibitions in Italy, ’’Oculus’’, Andrea Nuovo Gallery, Naples, “Eros Ethereal’’, AOC58 Galleria Bruno Lisi, Rome, “Aenigma Arcadiae’’, Marignana Project, Venice, and I am filled with inspiration for new ideas.
Already I am in the process of creating a new project regarding of the two interactive civilizations called “grecoromano’’ and its reflection from the today crossroad and cross-world to the future.
I will combine painting with objects in space. I hope soon I will have the capacity to communicate it in a world of Peace.
Interview by Fabio Pariante, X • Instagram • Website