The contemporary artistic ceramics of my intelligent and inventive friend Pela captivate you not only through the visual appeal of the colors and the idiosyncratic abstract clay constructions [after all, the artist does not focus on formalism but on the realization of her ideas], but also through the poetic nature of her constructions and a diffused lyricism. One could say that only poetry could be the dominant atmosphere in the exhibition space, the elegant Wowspace (Ioannina, 12 Aravantinou Street), where Pela Kalogirou exhibited her works [December 18-22] with her new thematic collection of ceramics, “astral bodies.”
From the exhibition catalog, we quote an excerpt from the artist’s introductory note, which is almost cautionary: “Astral body and human body. Interconnections. Threads, bridges, gaps. Light. Scale. Gravitational pull. Evolution. Order, chaos, space, time, an oversized black hole…” I had already highlighted Pela’s works in my extensive article published in Mandragoras magazine, entitled “The artistic ceramics of Pela Kalogirou, fusions of microcosm and macrocosm,” have guiding points that help you understand them, just as human anatomy and its representation also have guiding points. The universe, whose future we are all part of, also has laws and guiding principles. The universe contains everything except God.
Poetry is also hidden in the scientific theories of leading astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who stated that the universe was created from “nothing,” not in the sense of absolute emptiness, but as a quantum spontaneous appearance from the state of empty space, through natural laws, without the need for a creator God. Hawking considered the question “who created it?” meaningless, since time did not exist before the Big Bang. The great astrophysicist, emphasizing “spontaneous creation,” claimed that “nothing” was the void that allowed quantum fluctuations, from which space and time emerged.
Pela Kalogirou, always heretical and groundbreaking, having divorced herself from dogmas and “politically correct” positions, does not filter her words. after all, art is articulated speech, speech that deconstructs the symbolic order of reality; it is spontaneous creation on chaos, which exploits its dynamics and prospects.
With the excellent collaboration of her partner Yannis Sarailidis, who combines his astrophotography with Pela’s works, the exhibition is imaginatively transported to a space atmosphere (not coincidentally, the venue is Wowspace). The theme of Pela and Yannis’ “astral bodies” was inaugurated, not by a representative of the Ioannina priesthood, of course, but by the theater group “Aphigematikos Nous.” Looking closely at Pela Kalogirou’s new works, I was struck not so much by the colors (which she handles imaginatively) but by the light they exude. A combination of light and darkness. Darkness, shadows, and light, therefore, and a multitude of guiding points on the path to self-knowledge…
*Spyros G. Brikos. Physician, Biopathologist, Microbiologist. Author. PhD candidate at the School of Fine Arts, University of Ioannina (Department of Visual Arts & Art Sciences).
