How do you describe your own art practice?
It’s more of an organic process, something intuitive. I let everything flow freely through me as I experience the world around me. I prefer to permit my work to unfold naturally, without being attached to prescribed ideas. I feel that something new is coming together when my work starts to acquire new characteristics and I can sense that I’m driven towards a new emotional field. It’s not everything left to my intuition, but it certainly starts there. In the end everything is coming down to the heart. I could never find the passion or the precious devotion to follow something that was conceived in my mind and not inside my heart.
What was your first experience with art?
I spent my childhood close to nature, undisturbedly studying frogs and snails, bugs and spiders. The wings of a cicada, or the red and black colored shield of a pyrrhocoris apterus, they are still some of the most familiar and intimate shapes I can think of. I do find that every experience that art offers me to this day, it carries inside something of that same innocence, the excitement, the curiosity, the transcendence, the very first awakening of consciousness.
What is your greatest source of inspiration?
I perceive inspiration as the reflection of the senses on one’s expression; anything can stimulate it, as long as one remains open and unprepared. Open, in order to be prone to emotion and unprepared, in order to preempt rationalization.
What do you need in order to create your work?
The more you need, the less you feel. The more you think, the less you are. Everything already exists within the vast space the Self.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m in the process of editing my latest project, named ANAMA, a series I made in the Greek island of Tinos. An emotional and spiritual reflection on the island’s landscape.
What work or artist has most recently surprised you?
The collaboration between the Greek lute player George Xylouris and the Australian drummer Jim White. The sound of their music, a combination of traditional and folk tunes with contemporary references, almost functions as an installation, a multi-dimensional structure that projects space, time and memory.
