The Onassis Foundation continues to support Greek creators and transform the city’s public space. Meetings with contemporary Greek artists beautify the urban landscape of Athens, the walls of its apartment buildings. After Ilias Papailiakis’ “Kiss” in Avdi Square in Metaxourgeio, Sofia Stevi’s “Wave/Node” in Mavili Square, Aristidis Lappa’s “She Who Protects” in Omonia, the in situ neon installation “The Amulet of All Onton” by Angelos Plessas in Patision and the golden “Drop of Knowledge” by Nikomachis Karakostanoglou floating in the New World, the architect and painter Eleni Psyllaki creates in the neighborhood of Stegi, at 42 Lagoumitzi Street, a mural which aspires to soon become the new Instagram landmark of Athens.

The work “A Female Figure in Red and Purple Dress” represents the stylized figure of a woman in an ancient Cretan olive grove. The woman raises her hands to the Attic sky in an attempt to embrace the clouds and play with their shadows. Reminiscent of the goddesses with their hands raised in supplication displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, the urban goddess of Psyllaki stands haughty and commanding, like a guardian of the neighborhood, warding off negative energy and igniting our imagination. A key theme in her painting is the search for harmony and balance – spiritual and mental – in an unbalanced world. She paints silhouettes and vase forms in earthy tones with acrylic colors and, influenced by design and decoration, creates images that make you feel familiar. Once again, culture comes out of the Roof and runs through the city. She puts color on her walls and embraces the urban landscape.

The visual artist Eleni Psyllaki states “When I began to work on the concept of a vessel, a container that can contain within it a good, material or immaterial, I was not long in realizing its (obvious) association with that of human nature as a body that harbors (plus) feelings, values ​​and experiences. The female figure adorning the wall of the apartment building raises her hands to the sky, summons the cosmic energy, receives it through the openings of the vessel-body located in the imaginary head and hands, transfigures it and returns it to the earth within from the openings in her legs. Her role is balanced, protective, but at the same time strict, with clear boundaries. A Mother who is a point of reference as well as a grounding point for the disoriented Child of the 21st century.”

Her color palette is inspired by balanced earthy tones inspired by her place of origin, Crete. Her forms, on the other hand, are austere and minimal and rooted in abstraction, where any redundant information or detail is eliminated, imbuing the works with a Doric quality. Her paintings and works on paper are populated by various representations of vases, both historical and fictional. Despite their descriptive outline, forms are considered a flat space that can contain meaning.

Coefficients
Eleni Psyllakiartist
Onassis Foundation production organization: Maria Vasariotou, Artemis Palaska

Implementation: UrbanAct

Onassis Culture

Director of Culture: Aphrodite Panagiotakou

Deputy Director of Culture: Dimitris Theodoropoulos

Projection planning: Onassis Foundation Communication Department

Assignment & Production: Onassis Foundation Roof

A few words about Eleni Psyllaki

Eleni Psyllaki (born 1981) originally trained as an architect and her background in architecture and design is what influences her artistic practice. Her paintings and works on paper are characterized by linear sketching, straight lines, scaling, but above all by her love of symmetry.

The strict geometry and precision of her works are a continuation of the free sketch that one finds in architectural plans. Her color palette is inspired by balanced earthy tones inspired by her place of origin, Crete. In her works we can distinguish the beige of the stone, the brown of the trunks, the khaki of the olive and the gold of the summer ears. The forms, on the other hand, are austere and minimal and rooted in abstraction, where any redundant information or detail is eliminated, imbuing the works with a Doric quality. In this way, Psyllaki likes to draw attention to the contours, hard edges and pure tonality of the form.

Her paintings and works on paper are populated by various representations of vases, both historical and fictional. Despite their descriptive outline, forms are considered a flat space that can contain meaning. Here, the artist plays with the form of the vessel and what it contains, as well as the concept of emptiness and what it encloses, be it wine as in ancient Greece or an idea and an emotion. The vessels of Psyllaki always have an entrance and an exit, with the lower side left open and acting as a metaphor for the union between the sulfur and the earth.

The murals of Stegi in the city

Culture once again comes out of the Roof and runs through the city. He goes down to the center of Athens, puts color on its walls and defends the urban landscape as something timeless. Athens is our city and we treat it as what it is: a living organism full of interesting encounters, full of people who with their work change streets or neighborhoods, each in their own way – an area that is constantly evolving, renewing itself and searching for answers to timeless questions. And that’s why we explore it every day. Every year, through commissions and on-site artistic interventions in the public space of the center of Athens, the Onassis Foundation Shelter looks for places where art is intertwined with everyday life. Through a series of projects that penetrate the apartment buildings, great works of contemporary Greek visual artists are reborn on a large scale.

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Photo: © Stelios Tzetzias