I was born and spent the earlier part of my childhood in northern rural
Greece.My family and I emigrated to the states in 1967. My work is rooted in the
strong memories I brought from my childhood homeland. Like sinuous veins
they traverse time and bring blood and spirit to ideas. I grew up believing
in superstitions, magic healing springs and apparitions. And although I have
left most of my cultural beliefs behind, I keep with me the mysteries, the
old wives tales, and the sense of ceremony found
in everyday life.
In the late seventies and early eighties I studied research biology in
Boston. My love for science has remained with me in the ten years I have
been an artist and is now wedded to my excavation of esoteric magical
systems that I incorporate in my recent installation work. I received my
MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and am currently teaching
and unearthing lost information in Oakland.
Artist's Statement:
In the last few years my work has involved the wedding of ancient and modern
systems, to create techno-analogs of magical tools for divination. This work
has stemmed from a process of unearthing lost information and attempting to
re-integrate it into contemporary use. The information I seek to retrieve
usually takes the form of tools we have lost on our way to living a
high-paced, "progress"-filled daily existence. Oracular systems are the
principle tools I have explored. A good divination tool acts like a
mirror: it poses questions which incite reflection, helping one 'see' a
situation more clearly, sharpen intuitive skills, and ultimately know oneself
better. Many of these oracular systems have involved reading natural
phenomena for signs of guidance and affirmation.
In previous works such as
Well of Light and Scrying* by the Moon(see video documentation) I have
created technological echoes of these phenomena, giving
viewers the opportunity to experience the imagistic qualities of projected
and reflected video light, and encouraging them to reimagine and interpret
these images using ancient and now obscure methods of divination. I am
interested in the excavation of these ancient systems of insight and how they
might be made useful today. Their use may be one way of reinstating the sacred and
biophilic view in a world that is tending precariously towards a
materialistic and fragmented one.
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