Featured Artist Martha Zmpounou

Artist Martha Zmpounou combines realism and abstraction, inspired by the juxtaposition of her imagination and everyday life. Visit her website to see more of her fascinating work.

 

 

I am a visual artist and Illustrator currently living and working in London. I studied Fine arts and Painting at Aristotle University in Greece and Illustration at Central Saint Martins in London. I have exhibited widely in the United Kingdom and Greece. I often find myself juggling between working as an artist and teaching illustration at the London College of Fashion. I enjoy both equally and one practice feeds into the other creatively.

 

 

What inspires me to draw and paint is whatever happens when my imagination clashes with my everyday life—it’s the crossbreed of these two that urges me to create my images.

 

 

My style of working changes according to the theme I have in mind; however, the common thread that connects different groups of my works is the figure.

 

 

In my recent works, I use the idea of the portrait as a means and space of exposure, a way to communicate identity. Drawing from fashion and pop culture or from found vintage imagery, I am trying to create fragmented and grotesque portraits that touch upon the misinterpretation of the human figure in media.

 

 

Playing with stereotypes of the ideal beauty, they balance between beauty and repulsion.

 

 

I use masking and layering techniques and a colourful mix of water-based media, mostly ink and watercolour. I often start without a figure in mind. By exploring and reacting to the media’s properties I create a series of abstract ‘”episodes” on various papers that afterwards will inspire or lead to more representational/realistic outcomes.

 

 

Working in this “inverted” way has always being exciting to me as I could never predict the final outcome. I would discover it gradually throughout the process of making. I enjoy experimenting a lot with media and new ideas.

 

 

In some other groups of works, my work process involves cutting and reassembling drawings, sketches, fragments of paintings and found imagery to create a body of visual elements that when brought together will create a new story about the depicted figure.

 

 

The figure in this case is developed as a construct of fragments and spaces, an assemblage of elements disparate and connected at once.

 

 

I am really interested in the modalities of hiding and revealing and I like to combine or juxtapose realistically depicted elements with more abstract/expressive ones in one piece of work.

 

Want to stay current on cutting edge business articles from Artsy Shark, plus artist features, and an invitation to the next Call for Artists? Click below to sign up for our twice-monthly email. You’ll get all this plus opportunities and special offers that you can’t get anywhere else!