Souvenir d'Athènes

It all started with a souvenir. During my first visit to Athens in 2011, I bought a souvenir depicting the birth of goddess Athena, a sculptural complex at the east pediment of the Parthenon. The celebration of Athena’s birthday had a significant impact on me, it gave me a strong sense of female empowerment. 13 years have passed and yet nothing has changed. I was so impressed by the fact that, something as small as a souvenir can strengthen one’s belief and mindset, and so I wrote my proposal to FaveLAB’s Art Residency and decided to explore this feeling with a new visit to Athens this spring. I was accepted for 1+1 Residency where I would be in Athens for two weeks and a duo exhibition at the end of the residency. I started reading up and researching on  Greek Mythology 3 months prior to my visit to Greece.

In the exhibition “Souvenir d’Athènes”, I used my paintings to capture the positive elements in Greek Mythology and how it affected me. I visited all the archeological and sacred sites, learnt the architecture and art of the buildings. Hence, my paintings have some influence of Greek art and architecture (byzantine art). The main colours that were used are Blue, Peach, Gold and Brown. Blue and Peach were used in the background representing the sea and sun in Athens. Gold leaf and brown were mainly from the influence of Byzantine art.