Bal de tête
| “Mrs. Dalloway is always giving parties to cover the silence” ((Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway,1925)).
And this is what everyone does, isn’t it? Everyone except Anna Dimitriou.
She throws a masquerade party, a bal de tête and we are all invited. It is a party that takes place in the 1950s in Athens, where the guests are time travelers and the host comes from Saturn. It is a party of silence that is frozen in time. Just like everything else.
Like Alice, Anna finds herself in a color land, among superficially crazy and falsely sane. In her collages, she speaks about all those things. About all the different elements that coexist in such a harmony that are no longer different. After all, the artist does not care where we are coming from or where we are going. She cares about the now and the times, the smells, and the travels it carries. Her artwork is also a journey. A journey in memories and past times that we did not experience but are so alive, so present, and so desirable.
Anna Dimitriou is not scared. She took her art out in the streets, so as to keep the lonely buildings company, to give people the sincerest paper eyes to look at and some color to rest upon. She doesn’t stop there. She now enters homes, canvases, screens, furniture, our souls. And she takes everything down as she moves along; or everything that should be demolished. She keeps the most important things though. Because, if there is one thing, she teaches us, it’s not that we shouldn’t be afraid, but that we should not forget what’s meant to be remembered.
So, let’s get ready to party. Let’s remove our social masks and wear our hearts. And let’s drink
to all the seas we didn’t swim into,
to all the skies we didn’t look at,
to all the parties we didn’t go to,
to all the laughter we didn’t dare to dream.
Anna will find us there. We will be there. |
Elephant Design
photos and video by: Eleftheria Katsianou
Elephant design,
Tatoiou 134, 14671, Nea Erithrea
March 2 - March 29, 2021
ALL DAY
(IT IS A WINDOW EXHIBITION)
scan the QR CODE on the window display
Dimitriou
2021, ANNA DIMITRIOU, Athens
dreamboxanna.wixsite.com
Anna Dimitriou was born in Athens in 1972.
She studied film direction in the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos. She then went on to work in various television productions as well as expanding her studies in theatre direction and journalism. Dimitriou is self-taught in the art of collage. She first started practicing collage-making, and more specifically digital collage, in 2006 and later on started practicing analog collage. As a collage artist, she has taken part in many groups and solo exhibitions in Athens, Thessaloniki, and other cities in Greece. She has designed posters and magazine covers, she is involved in writing and goes by the name “Canndyblue”.
She has been seriously engaged with street art – especially murals – for the past five years, garnering much acclaim and achieving recognition in the process. She creates in public spaces and has been most known for her works in abandoned buildings of historic significance that she decorates with murals of the likes of Frida Kahlo, Greek performer Jimis Panousis and many others. She gets inspired mostly by the old world, particularly the first decades of the 20th century thus retaining a constant dialogue with the past. Her most ambitious street-art project as of yet is the “Xenia Hotels” initiative. Through that project, she has set the goal of reviving the Greek summers of her youth and to protest against the abandonment of our past.
Her art is playful, combining collages of vintage photos with oil painting techniques that are full of color. She mostly depicts women figures of the past while giving them a modern makeover. In her work, one can find retro-romantic elements that are uplifting. Anna’s imaginative art is truly at a crossroads of times past and times present…
Foteini Noti / woodtales.gr
WoodTales is created by Fotini Noti. Ιt started as an idea in 2018 and became a reality a few months later. Fotini aims to make people understand the method of furniture restoration, the idea of reusing furniture but with a different touch, combining the old with the new and minimal design. The basic material that she uses is chalk paint, but every situation is unique so she may need to combine different techniques and many materials.
Andreas Anthopoylos / underconstructionatathens
Under construction at Athens specializes in changing furniture upholstery, restoration, and furniture processing. Andreas Anthopoulos is behind that business. It was his love and belief in the old that made him start this project in 2014. He believes that vintage is not just a passing trend. He aims to show that the old furniture is timeless and that by preserving them and restoring them they will always be jewels.
