STATEMENT
What is our purpose of inhabiting human flesh?
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I create art to document my human evolution in an attempt to find and investigate purpose in life.
An auto-ethnographic process of creative mapping, free from expectation and far from utopian, my inspiration derives from observation, awareness, and then concern. The offspring conceived with intense physical and mental labor; the work’s purpose is to seduce, then induce the spectator in thought. Through illusion and devise, it communicates with the intention galvanize with awe and concern. In my thirst for knowledge; philosophy, psychoanalysis, mathematics, science, belief, mythology and art history have been guiding, and rendering my perception of self. The work itself is my reaction of accumulated theory, distilling former perceptions of human nature, sexuality and spirituality.
The process of making is often dictated by the work itself. Each piece is envisioned during periods of intense research and stimulation. The imaginary object then demands my formulated process; of study, device and invention of customized approach, technique and method. The structure of process is calculated and formulated, often involving physics and mathematical equations. The choice of materials and technique is never limited to my existing knowledge and skill, eager to invent concoctions, satisfying the needs of my vision. The conceptual, and often visual, complexity of the work is transcendent of the time-consuming and labor-intensive process of making. Each piece is not a product of research, but the lovechild of the polyamorous relationship between me, science, philosophy and art. The immense emotional connection with each piece is always an active participant in the process, the outcome and context of the work, yet the work itself sustains autonomy.
Salvation (2018) is a large scale, mixed-media sculpture, central to the installation The Essence of the Human Experience (2018). As crucial as the process of making and aesthetic appeal of the work is, its public curation even more so. It must stimulate most sense, in order for the work to be comprehended, its intentions to be fulfilled. The sculpture itself is reflective of an occurrence – salvation. The work is seductive by nature; conceptualizing my experience of the term and event of salvation; it attempts to lure, seduce, and captivate the audience, only to arouse deep thought and problematization on mine against their interpretation of the term. The perplex nature of the work demands a more sensitive and sophisticated approach by its audience, if they wish to decode information provided through the work, and experience salvation. Some fundamental elements in its design are the transmutations and continuous evolution of my understanding in: sacred geometry, religion and the divine feminine, mythology, the history of the ornament, principals in nature, ancient Greek sculpture, illusion, color history and theory amongst others.
The work offers an insight to my perceptions and thoughts on issues around the human experience and identity relevant to my experience at the time of creation. A visually performative documentation of my journey, instead of answering questions, the work aims to advise awareness, trigger emotion, to breed questions and thirst knowledge. Perhaps then we could all have better, more substantial human experience.
“I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think…” (Michel Foucault)
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DEMETRA DEMETRIADOU
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