Parting Words

Written By Tesha Malott

Elena Papanikolakis
Parting Words
24 May - 30 June, 2018

Collage of an aged black and white photograph of plants on hills, with a blue & green photo in the center, of a river from a bird's eye view. Small marks of pink crayon. Text: "An elaborate telling of outdated tales."

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.


Artist Statement

Parting Words presents new works comprising collage, text and painting.

The works in the exhibition explore the realm of departures, from the finality of death, to deviations from context, form and function. It considers departures in terms of distance or removal from people, places, ideas and culture; to aberrations, and diversions between message and meaning.

2 large photographic prints with a geometric composition on the wall, in colours of beige, grey, orange, yellow and brown. Each print has white borders.

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Gallery space with white walls and photographic prints. Left to right. 2 prints in beige, grey, yellow and orange. Large framed landscape print. 2 white collages.

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Drawing from a broad range of personal and found materials, the works in Parting Words explore the breadth and implications of archives whilst delving into remnants of personal and cultural history. There is no demarcation in the works between personal and found material, with boundaries between the two merged, blurred and overlapped.

Collage of birds-eye view of rocks on snowy mountain peaks. A rectangular photographic strip of desert dunes is layered over diagonally, lining up with the shapes behind. Page number of 145 in the bottom right corner.

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

In spite of this, works in the exhibition seek to dually engage with information and abstraction, that is- to engage with meaning whilst challenging modes of comprehension. This is considered through plays around photographic proof and the communicative function of language and engaging with how painting can operate in the space between figuration and abstraction.

Installation view, left to right. 2 Predominantly white collages. Large collage with white boarder of orange sand dune textures and blue striped shell.

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Thought is given to exploring the modes and structures that scaffold information, such as book pages. Working with the book page format presented opportunities to give structure to and formalise abstracted information, and explore the relationship between, and expectations of images and text.

Collage on a white background. Cut outs of a red, white and black flower bush and white crystal are layered over eachother. There is a small brown stain in the top right side of the white background.

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Collage of a close up cut out of the ridges on a shell, layered over a photo of the ridges on a sand dune. Below, text reads: "The cast of characters inch forward.".

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

At the core of the installation is a house shaped from a number of strategically hung vertical blinds that are motorised so they are constantly opening and closing. The blinds are made of mirror tint film whose dual transparent and reflective properties creates multiple layers and fractured reflections that warp the viewers’ sense of depth and perception of self and are used to explore the experience of ‘in-between-ness’—a dream-like state one encounters when they are in a space of being neither here nor there.

Collage of a mountain landscape in dreamy pastel colours and brown, layered over a black and white landscape. Below, text reads: "The principle note quietly gains.".

Elena Papanikolakis, Parting Words, installation view. 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Roomsheet

Tesha Malott
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