The BlueHour
In this series of my photographic artworks, I am more interested in the possibility of rendering the intensity of the shadow than that of light, in terms of painting plasticity. I focus on the drama that emerges from their relationship, having in mind Rembrandt - although here we have no action but the stillness and indifference of things - and Caravaggio, in order to portray the tragedy of modern life, violence, the annihilation of freedom, dignity and culture that we mistakenly believed we possessed. Beyond a comment that emerges from the harshness of reality and the collapse in the darkness of what we took for granted, my image deals with the invincible transcendence of the human spirit and nature. It stresses the contemporary situation and at the same time resists it by sinking into the blue semitones of the blue hours, the twilight.
Through an abstract process, the information vanishes as it is dragged into an abyss, retaining only the minimal and necessary elements that characterize the subject and the space around it. In some cases, subject and space, conquer the non figurative by leaving behind what defined them and by setting aside their identity, they are transformed into something different, captured by imagination. The forms that remain as a visual trace are loaded with an ontological essence. They soften and flow in a constant movement as they break their own stillness, dragging our gaze into them.
As Honore de Balzac writes in The Unknown Masterpiece: “To me, whiteness is revealed beneath the density of the most impenetrable shadow!”
Bio
I was born in Athens. During and after the completion of my studies on Graphic and Interior Design at A.T.E.S. (Athens Technological and Educational School), I worked privately in the Advertising field, by establishing my creative studio and consequently engaged in multinational Advertising Companies.
In 2009 I initiated my studies at the School of Fine and Applied Arts, faculty of Fine Arts, of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and graduated with excellent in 2014, with professor Ioannis Fokas.
During the academic year 2014-2015, I took courses on philosophy, aesthetics and philosophy of media, at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA). These courses are part of the school’s educational Μ.Α. programs. During the same period and at the above mentioned school, I participated in the plasterwork studio courses.
In 2015, I continued my studies at the Greek-French collaborative ΜΑ program: Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece & University Paris 8 Arts et Technologies de l’Image Virtuelle, UFR Arts, France, from which I acquired my M.A. in May 2017, with dissertation title “The plausible and the imaginary in the Surrealistic paintings and in the Digital installations in Virtual space”. As my practice, I presented my artwork implemented with 3d digital interactive environmental constructions in virtual reality (VR) space. (youtu.be/x2lcLlRjjvQ)
​Since February 2020 I am Phd candidate at the School of Fine and Applied Arts, of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
In my artworks, so far, my concerns are of language, philosophy and technology issues as the basis of communicative substratum for both the artist and the spectator and as a motive for the investigative possibilities given by painting and its materialistic / non materialistic means, in contemporary art and expression, with emphasis on structure. My principal, my creative axis is the open dialogue between the present and the past, through the History of Art.
I have participated in group exhibitions in Greece and abroad and I have presented a solo show. For more information please visit my website www.elenamarinouartist.com