Kalliopi Asargiotaki, has established herself as one of the leading painters in contemporary Greek art. Her evocative, emotionally charged art, blends figurative, symbolic and metaphysical elements conveying a sense of rebirth and illumination. Her art focuses on the intimacy of human experiences and existential exploration. Her style has evolved from fluid expressionism to the meticulous representations of female solitary figures, highlighting her versatility as a painter.
Asargiotaki’s delicate and expressive lines and attention to detail create artworks that feel intensely personal yet universal. Her timeless, symbolic narratives are reminiscent of medieval art, echoing the spiritual intensity often depicted in medieval iconography, albeit through a modern lens. Her art is deeply spiritual, exploring themes of existence, transcendence, and illumination, radiating an almost ethereal quality. Her lone, elegant, glamorous figures are not just depictions of the body but representations of the soul, carrying an otherworldly aura and embodying existential and spiritual quests.
Her work can be described as a dialogue between the tangible world and the ineffable, resonating with the viewers on a profound, almost mystical level, achieved through the interplay of symbolic imagery, rich textures, and ethereal color palettes. Offering more than visual appeal her art invites us to explore our inner selves and momentarily step away from the hustle and bustle of daily life and rediscover the beauty and wonder that surrounds us.
Blending artistic tradition with modern sophistication and contemporary aesthetics, her dazzling female figures are infused with emotional depth and visual elegance. Influenced by the great masters, fashion, Scandinavian mythology, Flemish painting, Victorian and Renaissance elements, and pagan symbols, her dreamlike universe captivates the viewer and draws him to a spiritual world where melancholic eyes, pearls, tears, and glass balls serve as vessels through which we are connected to the essence of our existence.
Kalliopi Asargiotaki was born in Ierapetra (Crete, Greece). She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Giorgos Mavroidis and Ilias Dekoulakos (1979-1983) thanks to a Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) grant. She pursued her studies in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (1985-1986) on a French State scholarship (CROUS), under Vladimir Veličković. Her first solo show in 1989 was followed by eleven solo exhibitions. Her works are featured in prestigious private collections and art foundations in Greece and abroad. She lives and works in Athens.
Kalliopi Asargiotaki speaks to Greek News Agenda* about the way memory and aesthetics have shaped her enchanted visual world.
Impeccably beautiful costumes, striking jewelry and iconic female figures depicted in your paintings allude to the past. What are your artistic references?
There are no specific influences or references in my painting. I am inspired by the entire history of art, its great masters and contemporary artists alike. Depending on the period I am referring to and my artistic pursuits, design, fashion and ancient Greek art are also a source of inspiration for me. For example, my body of work entitled Desert Rose has distinct links with Pre-Raphaelite painting. My works delve into memories of myths as well as contemporary issues.
Dreamlike, predominantly female, figures depicted in your work invite the viewer to connect with them. What are the themes that concern you as an artist and what emotions do you aspire to convey to the viewer?
My painting is undoubtedly anthropocentric, with a particular emphasis on the female figure. But if I had to identify specific themes in my work, then these would be portraits, erotic works and personal memories.
Over the last ten years or so, my work has been dominated by the modern woman, depicted through iconographic and technical elements. I am inspired by the painterly values of the past, while, at the same time, I paint with contemporary materials.
What I want to transfer into my own pictorial present is the emotion and awe I feel when I see the great paintings of the past. Through my perspective, I focus on the lessons of the old techniques and how they can be incorporated into my contemporary approach to painting.
What is the role of memory and personal experience in your works?
I paint through memory and for memory. My work is multilayered; conceptually, technically and visually. The final visual result consists of multiple layers of drawing and colors that coexist in the work like layers of memory.
Childhood memories, changes in my personal life and my family often shape my subject matter and the surrounding atmosphere. My personal or external experiences are incorporated into my work, specifically those that resonate with my inner self, my personal artistic pursuits and my processes. I would say that the memories of my personal universe subtly haunt my painting.
Could you describe your creative process? What motivates you, when do you consider a work completed?
I do not follow a specific process. Sometimes I start with a drawing and work on it as a draft or as a stand-alone piece. Sometimes I paint directly on the canvas. I might start with small-scale works and then work on them on a large scale or I might I create a large work from the beginning.
I work tirelessly indoors in my studio, with a timetable and daily discipline. It is the painting itself that determines the way I work. I create stitches of figures and non-existent forms. Their final form is shaped by my memory and imagination. I consider a work finished when the energy I have invested in it is exhausted; when I cannot return to it; when the work itself does not allow me to intervene in its atmosphere again.
The figures depicted in your works are stunningly beautiful. What is the role of beauty in art? Do you think that something weird or ugly could qualify as art?
There is no such thing as beautiful and ugly in art. Art transforms reality into something totally different; art has nothing to do with reality. What is so unique in painting is that it transcends reality, you cannot see blood as blood. Let us think of the works by Goya, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Bacon…
As far as I am concerned, though, I paint beauty. I aspire to convey the inner world of the figures, their fascinating psyche and emotions. The colors I choose, the intricate materials and the handmade papers I use serve this purpose.
What is it that defines your work? Are there rules in art?
I believe that the elements that define my work are my love of detail and decoration, the rhythm of the pattern that often leads to abstraction, the transparency as a vehicle for the spiritual and the invisible behind the visible. If I fail to aesthetically convey the precious aspect of reality, I consider that I have failed. Each time my goal is to convey something special in the forms and landscapes I paint.
In art there are no rules; each artist creates, if he succeeds, his own universe. As far as I am concerned, a work of art serves its purpose if an atmosphere has been created in a way that the work of art entirely belongs to it and the artist has henceforth nothing to do with it.
That is, when there is a sense of completeness, when the work exists in its own autonomous world, in which not even the artist himself can intervene. The love of detail and decoration, the rhythm of the pattern that often tends towards abstraction, transparency as a vehicle for the spiritual, the invisible behind the visible, are elements that I believe characterize my painting. If I fail to aesthetically convey the precious aspect of reality, I consider that I have failed. I attempt each time to convey something special in the forms and landscapes I paint.
In art there are no rules, each artist creates, if he succeeds, his own universe. I consider a work to be artless when it has created an atmosphere that has left its creator and to which the work now belongs completely. This essentially means that there is a sense of completeness; that is, the work of art exists in a world of its own, a world that not even the artist himself can intervene.
Your works are part of a timeless, metaphysical, seductive universe. How does this visual language find its place in our modern, ephemeral, “disenchanted” world?
I paint because I cannot live without painting. At the same time, I am interested in the viewer as well as in the time I live in. Through my works I aspire to offer a sense of the preciousness, to remind us of the magic and uniqueness of a world that is constantly moving in the opposite direction.
I feel that my work is a resistance to the speed and simplicity of modern everyday life in the sense that it demands the viewer’s time to see and enjoy it. My works depict the joy of painting, my physical engagement with them, the efforts of my hand to create them as works-in-progress, against the trivial, the ready-made, and the haste of our times, as images of a time that goes by in its own rhythm, the rhythms of the past.
*Interview by Dora Trogadi
TAGS: ARTS
