Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Size: 20″ x 20″

Year: 2009

Read more about Antria Pelekanou

   $ 200.00

Artist Statement

The art of seduction, through ironic nude portraiture achieved through combined styles and influenced through numerous art periods and movements

I try to portray what influences me in my personal life in my art work. For example much of my work is concerned with cartoons and film influences. In my paintings there is a certain cartoony element evident. I am interested in romanticised stereotypes of women that are so commonly found in scenes from popular film genres such as the typical romantic comedies. I am intrigued by the representations of women in these films. Often when I prepare myself for a new painting I find myself approaching the image as though I were a director, capturing a snap shot moment where the focus is upon the female body.
My interests in painting lye with both contemporary and classical portraiture; I am influenced by traditional female nude portraiture mostly from Victorian art and onwards, and artists such as Stanley Spencer, George Frederic Watts, Lucian Freud, Eric Fischl and John Collier to name a few. I am interested in trying to create a female nude that will create a perfect communication to the selected viewer; I think of clothes like a mask, when I have to dress my female characters I dress them in such a way that the viewer can feel the flesh underneath those clothes. Taking all the components of my small paintings apart we have plain colorful background, a technique that many artists through the history of Art have used, naked or semi dressed female bodies with focus on selected areas of the nude.
Nudes in some cultures may seem as indecent or inappropriately erotic and punishment may be liable. But it seems to me that Europe rejects modesty and welcomes the raw nude, making it powerful and beautiful to look at.
To quote from Renoir, “the nude woman will emerge either from the sea or her bed, and consequently will be called either Venus or Nini. The body of myth surrounding the nude is subordinated to the representation of nudity.” I also look at figures of nudes and mythological creatures as an inspiration.
The composition and pose of my characters seems to idealise the body while denuding it which allows me to have a better understanding of the nude. My paintings contain stylized figures in patterns of colour, form and lines. The pose of these exposed characters seem to make them look vain and this is purposely done. I seek to idealise and glamorise the body of the woman, whether the original imagery was of a perfect model, or of a traumatised obese woman that was used for Jenny Seville’s painting. This is a motif that runs through my work. I have tried really hard to paint the ‘ugly’ but while painting, I seem to erase more and more impurities and abnormalities of the skin and body and even out the tones and colours, so my paintings end up looking flat. What I have recently come to realise is that I don’t have to change my style. This is my painting technique and anything otherwise that I have tried looks like is not me.
Reading from “the Nude, ideal and reality: painting and sculpture” I came across a Ferdinand Hodler piece called “Day Single Figure” that was done in 1899. His technique seems remotely like my technique. He uses a blend of mediums to betray his nudes and the background. His work could look that I have done it or the other way around. His figures are simple, almost flat, with shadows line drawn on top of the painting instead of the traditional way painted with oil colours. I think Hodler really pushed the boundaries of what can be a painting and what can be a drawing. This inspired me in my current work, which I am blurring the line when my work is illustration, cartoon, drawing and painting and I am combining all four in one. I went through four stages of painting this year. Firstly it was clearly anime/ manga paintings, and then it was something in between fantasy and reality of the norm, followed by illustrational drawings, followed by a series of figurative paintings with all styles mentioned combined but very discreet .
Like Glenn Brown the surfaces of my paintings are flat, and there is a suggestion of the relationship between painting and photography which suggest the psychological drama of looking.
I have found a very interesting medium to work with, which is wallpaper. Wallpaper gives out a domestic look which enables the viewer to read that through my work. What is a painting? What makes a drawing? The wallpaper allows me to play with that idea. When the painted wallpaper is cropped as a square, presented flat on a wall, with one of my paintings centred on top of it, it doesn’t work; the purpose of the wallpaper change into a frame for the canvas, which is not what I am looking for. When the wallpaper is done purposely bad with dripping paint and the painting is presented on top of it, but not centred then the wallpaper and the painting becomes one. It becomes an installation, instead of a framed artwork. When the drawing is done on the wallpaper it then suddenly changes again into an illustrational painting, which reminds me of Marcel Duchamp’s concept. Of all the works in his series of ready-mades, Fountain is perhaps the best known because the symbolic meaning of the toilet takes the conceptual challenge posed by the ready-mades to their most visceral extreme. My painting surfaces are mass-produced, ready-made for me to use, which is a crucial element in my work, because I do work like a machine and can make up to three or even four paintings a day, the ready-made surfaces (canvas, sketchbook, wood, panel, glass etc) enables me to do that.
Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects, pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of Abstract Expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them. 1
All of those characteristics of Pop art as well as the kitschy element of any given culture through the use of irony dignify my work. The highest point that can be associated with Kitsch and Eclecticism are the nudes created by Francis Picabia at the beginning of the Forties. Indirectly Picabia has influenced me on a number of levels.
The nude in the Sixties, with influences from Pop Art, was discourteous and for that reason the Church did not tolerate it, so it can now be set alongside images from areas external to art, like popular illustration, news photography, eroticism, and in some cases pornography.

PERSONAL DETAILS

ANTRIA PELEKANOU
DATE OF BIRTH: 20/07/1988
CURRENT ADDRESS: United Kindom

EDUCATION

2006-2009 BA (HONS) Fine Art in the University of The West of England Bristol with Full Scholarship and government grants.
2005-2006 Foundation degree, in Fine Art Media & Design with Distinction, in Cyprus Academy of Arts
2002-2005 Lyceum of Linopetra, Limassol, Cyprus (overall score 18.8/20)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2009 Degree Show at Spike Island Gallery
2009 The Lloyd Gill Gallery
2009 Academy of Arts, Bath Spa
2009 Volunteers exhibition at Centrespace Gallery
2009 Slideshow at the View Art Gallery
2009 Academy of Arts, Bath Spa
2009 Fine Line drawing Exhibition at Bower Ashton Campus
2008 U.W.E Bristol Spike Island
2007 U.W.E. Bristol Bower Ashton Campus
2006 Cyprus Academy of Art, Cyprus

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2009 Academy of Arts Bath Spa
2008 LEVEL Club, Cyprus

WORK EXPERIENCE

2009 The Lloyd Gill Gallery internship
2009 Center Space Volunteer show curator
2008-2009 Arnolfini Volunteer
2008-2009 Centrespace Gallery Volunteer
2008 Stella Vine’s studio assistant
2005 Painting workshop assistant in Cyprus