Corridor Éléphant proposes a collection of paperbacks in limited edition, numbered and signed. Those books are available on their on-line bookstore.

The layout, the printing and the choice of paper are decided with the artist in order for the end-result to reflect in the best possible way the work of the photographer. The book of Pelly Angelopoulou will be printed on semi-matte coated paper of 170gr.

Limited, numbered and signed by the author edition, certified by a cold stamp. Format 15x21 cm. 108 pages. 77 artworks.

What can be said of history beyond the fact that it is impossible to give birth to anything else but hope ?

_______

Brussels, late at night, a woman and a man sitting at a table, surrounded by smoke, talking. She says:

“Would you accept to give me the photos we just saw? I would like to cut them out, imagine a joint work where my reflection would merge with yours. A piece that could be read on different levels and would allow each person to find, not answers, but to pose questions.”

One would have to be reasonable to refuse this union and that I am not.

INTERVIEW

Could you describe your artistic career to us?

My artistic nature found its expression through the visual arts. I studied at the Athens University of Fine Arts and a little later I came back to teach. I chose mosaic as a medium because it was unexplored in the fields of contemporary arts, I never forced the evolution of my personal style which was developed through research, work and experimentation.

I see mosaic as a mixture of painting and sculpture and I am interested in aesthetically constructing forms and volumes, avoiding the trap of simply exploiting the charm of bright and colourful smalti, natural and semi-precious stones. Gradually I started to use other materials like found objects, Japanese paper tissues, crystals etc. thus creating a kind of mixed media.

Lately I started to work with collages which I developed through research, experimentation and work, creating forms based on painterly principles, resulting in homogenous compositions and not fragmentary images placed next to each other.

What is common in both mosaic and collage is that I have to deconstruct materials, papers, stones etc and re-construct them as something new.

I have had a career that would be considered international by exhibiting in many countries around the world and it was the same with my works which could be found in private collections and historical monuments in numerous countries.

Among the most important steps of my career have been :

Tree personal exhibitions in museums of Tokyo and Osaka organized by the important Japanese publishing group the “Yomiuri Shimbun”.

The participation in the Moscow Biennial with my installation entitled "Children's reliquary". Organized and sponsored by the Russian collector Ismail Akmetov.

The personal exhibition at the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels.

The Π + A project in collaboration with the photographer Axel Leotard.

Why did you choose collage?

The idea of the collage was born during a professional collaboration that I had with my son Dionysis. He asked me to create pictures to accompany texts and I created them with collages. He loved them and he encouraged me to continue

I started by exploring the aesthetic potentials of the medium and I realized that it opened new and different avenues of expression than those of mosaic. At around this stage, I met the photographer Axel Leotard who looked seriously at my collages, which until that moment I considered them as being an experiment.

I spontaneously proposed to him to try creating a collaborative project and he reacted just as spontaneously, answering “why not”? His collection of around 500 photos was the key that freed my imagination. They were not only a source of inspiration, that is limited, but they influenced my own concepts as well. The result was to be freed from certain preoccupations, uncertainties and hesitations.

This is how our collaboration gradually began and gave birth to the Π + A projects concerning humans and life. Our collaboration is unconventional and difficult to explain. As with most collaborations of artists they involve an important part of exchanges and intellectual influences.

The way I create my works is long and complex. Photography captures the moment. Even the images of the works of art that I use for my compositions are not the works themselves, but instantaneous images of them through photography. Thus, each work is made up of many moments from a non-specific period of time, linking the past to the present.

It is also evident that the pictures are used as symbols and as hieroglyphics, serving the narratives of my thoughts and ideas.

Why you cut and assemble artworks from different eras?

In works of art, each individual part has a strong meaning and symbolism that they still carry even when they are cut off from the composition. When they are used to create another image, their original symbolism is altered, influenced by the new context within which they are placed.

Therefore what would be paramount is the symbolism of each image and the way in which they co-operate aesthetically and semantically with the other images of the composition. So time doesn't really matter.

The compositions of the project do not concern a specific period of time or place, but the influences and effects that events have had on societies and individuals as well as on humans and their lives. The past and the present coexist to highlight facts which, regardless of time and place, have all been provoked by similar motivations, intentions and interests and all of them have also caused suffering, disaster or joy.

Would you say that this project is "political"?

This work is mainly political. The collaboration with Axel Leotard was based on the fact that we both share similar principles and values in regards to human life, universal human rights and we both feel that they become more relevant than ever.

When we first met in 2016 the financial and social effects of the 2008 crisis were still visible all around the world, while as we now know there was still considerably more trouble ahead.

While the subjects do not focus on current events in the strict sense, they keep a relationship with both the past and the present as well as with the here, the there and everywhere.

As an artist and a sensitive human being, it would not be possible to avoid addressing the political and social issues of our time, like social hypocrisy and injustice, prejudice, the breakdown of social norms and classifications, gender equality and identity, human sexuality, war, life, death, love, hell and heaven on earth.

Without any doubt the intention was not to produce images of dogmatic preaching but to encourage questioning and reflection. Of course sometimes it is inevitable to make an intentional provocation.

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