LIGHT
Transparency
The work enters the space
The light transforms
The landscape that is traced
The inside and the outside are abolished
Dream
Creation of images
Memory flickers – abstraction
And, the repetition of the symbol
Creation of images
Memory flickers – abstraction
And, the repetition of the symbol
BREATHING
Vulnerability
Time, material, and body in interaction
In becoming – a process of creation
The air full of exhalations
Mikella Psara's retrospective exhibition "Light⎯⎯Breathing" proposes a walk through her paintings, wall works, and installations with wax and paper as principal materials. A large number of works were created over the last ten years and are presented for the first time.
The artist's quests have led her through the years from the abstract pictorial representation of space, to the exploration of the symbolic fields of ancient cultures, and subsequently to the philosophy of light in Japanese culture. Developing her own techniques and materials, such as hardened paper, textured pigments, and wax imbued with fiberglass, she ventures into a continuous play with the organic temperaments of each material, wanting to bring out the beauty that lies within their interaction and the imperfections that arise.
The title of the exhibition emphasizes the experiential aspect of Psara's creative process, bringing together the concepts of light and breath as transformative forces that intensify the sense of the passage of time, of constant change and the endless play of becoming. The works, which increasingly emphasize the mutability of matter, become part of a fluid visual narrative that invites us to wander between presence and absence, movement and stasis.
This fluidity follows something of Gaston Bachelard's dream cosmology, who reminds us in "Water and Dreams" that dreams are the predominant site for the manifestation of images directly related to the 'material side' of the imagination, which creates a system of poetic precision linked to the constant ambiguities of matter. This is the system that then 'meets' reality and gives it a deeper meaning, transforming sensory stimuli into sensory values.