ATHENS OPEN ART 1 5 T H
J U L Y
ATHENS
LONDON
GALLERY
EXHIBITIONS
INDEX ELENI FRAGOU PHOTOGRAPHY ELLI CHALARI AIMILIA BALASKA ELZBIETA "ELA" ZDUNEK FLORIN ȘTIRBU MAIKI BASEL MEDUSSA POLAROIDCREATIVES PILAR OLIVERO EMY KEVIN B. CASAS ANDRÉS GALLEGO JOOST RUTTEN CHRISTOS PATER SARAH IMFELD
ELENI FRAGOU PHOTOGRAPHY IG: @elenifragou_photography Eleni Fragou is a professional photographer. She is based in Athens and works as a free lancer in Greece and abroad. She did photography studies at the Technological Educational Institute of Athens. Landscape photography has been integral part of the core of her work during her 20-year career. Eleni takes pictures that give details about the landscapes, while encapsulating the feelings that arise from her travels - an aspect of photography she considers to be the most important of them all. Exhibitions Art Zone 42 art gallery - Collateral Worlds - May 2012 Athens Mosaic Underground - Playing in Light and Shadow - October 2014 Athens Blank Wall Gallery – Monochrome - February 2021 Athens Chania International Photo Festival – July 2021 Chania – Crete 36
ELLI CHALARI IG: @elli.chalari Elli Chalari (1996) was born in Athens and grew up in Santorini. She studied Photography and Audiovisual Arts at the University of West Attica, the Facultad de Bellas Artes of University of Granada and classical guitar at the National Conservatory annex of Santorini. She sees photography as creative play, a means of reconnecting with our inner child. Her pictures are characterised by a minimalist aesthetic while play, surprise, and surrealism are core elements of the themes she chooses to photograph. She has taken part in the 4th Chania International Photo Festival (July 2021) and in the national exhibition of the Blank Wall Gallery (October 2021) with the subject “Fine Art”.
AIMILIA BALASKA IG: @aimilia_balaska Aimilia Balaska was born in South Africa. She lives and works in Athens as a graphic designer and Photographer. She is a visual artist experimenting with video, photography, various materials and objects. She studied Interior Design, Graphic Design, Photography and Visual arts. In 2022 she graduated under a scholarship from MIddlesex University - Akto College, Master of Arts in Photography & Visual Language.
ELZBIETA "ELA" ZDUNEK IG: @surrellart Elzbieta "Ela" Zdunek is a Polish collagist based in Berlin. While art has always been present in some form in her life, it was during the pandemic and the lockdown when she discovered the language of collage and its strength and versatility. By reusing topics and elements, she highlights patterns of behavior and nuances that make us both the hero and the villain depending on the context. She is fascinated with the dystopian surrealism of Zdzislaw Beksinski; the unapologetic curiosity of Leonora Carrington; and the silent films that don’t need words to speak. She feels most at home at the intersection between the darkest shadows and the brightest light, and she finds it in music, by artists like Nick Cave, Placebo, or Depeche Mode, who have all inspired several of her works.
FLORIN ȘTIRBU stirbu.florin.laurentiu@gmail.com
He attended the Painting section of School of Arts, but later he evolved to have a passion for sculpture. His artworks aim at both delighting the eye of the beholder by their esthetics and practicality, and at provoking reflexivity and dialogue. “FACE OFF” is a critical reflection of the tendency of the postmodern era to lose its identity. “ORIGINS” praises nature’s creativity and is an exhortation to find it. The artist is self-taught, but perfectionist, in the realm of sculpture, and he was inspired by the Italian art and culture. He considers art as being the best mean of communication between generations, cultures, and peoples.
BASEL IG: @baselkane Basel is a 24 years old photographer and primary school teacher, who lives in Thessaloniki. She holds a BA degree in Primary Education and a MA degree in Arts in Education. Her passion for analog photography follows her throughout her trips in the European countries. Meeting new places and people are the main elements of her analog artworks. Her artistic vision and personal experience, focuses on the pulse of European capitals. The passion for travelling began in her early student years and shaped the way she wants to see the world. Italy, Poland and Austria are the three countries depicted in her artworks.
MEDUSSA IG: @me_dussa Medussa, is a Spanish artist with a defined style in collages, yet this does not mean that she is not opposed to exploring other styles. Her journey began 2 years ago when she started becoming interested in Medusa mythology and she researched a lot about about Medusa and also Greek mythology. Finally, she felt identified with all of it. In her normal life, she is a nurse in Spain but in the last 2 years working with COVID, she reached a point in her life where she felt the need to have a break. So she decided to come to Athens, Greece and start looking for her inner self.
POLAROIDCREATIVES IG: polaroidcreatives Polaroidcreatives, based in New South Wales, Australia is a group of emerging fine art photographers inspired by impressionist, analogue and experimental photography. They challenge conventional techniques and explore boundaries of body and shape within the frame to create interesting and unique pieces of art.
PILAR OLIVERO IG: @pilarolivero_ Pilar Olivero is a visual artist from Argentina, currently living in Paris. Since 2009, she has trained in analog photography and alternative processes, leaning towards teaching and coordinating experimental workshops. She works with vulnerable sectors and believes in art as a healing process.
EMY IG: @emyyatess Emy is an artist and photographer currently based in Morocco. Initially drawn to film photography due to its reminiscent quality, Emy later began to experiment with double exposure and what can be expressed through layered imagery. Emy is interested in how photography makes you feel; both the process and the result. These photos are part of a series that attempt to get closer to nature, which was sidetracked by an obsession with trying to insert artificial lights into natural images. Both this process and the images themselves reflect a longing to escape the noise, yet the inability to unplug. More photos from this series can be found on Emy’s instagram and website.
KEVIN B. CASAS IG: @kevinbcasas Kevin Casas artistic interests are linked to the new technologies and especially focused on the unconcealment of their communicational logic. His artworks have been included in art shows like "Ojalá!" (Berlin, 2015) and Hope (ESMoA, 2017). He has worked as a professor at the University of Arts of Cuba (ISA), the University of Havana and Miami Dade College. He has participated as a speaker in events like “Beyond the Hyphen. Approaching a Post Geographic Cuba” (Princeton University, 2014). His master's thesis was published in the book “Outlooks on Digital Art” (Mexico, 2020). Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy (2004), Masters in Art History, University of Havana (2011). Associate in Science: Computer Programming and Analysis, Miami Dade College (2019).
ANDRÉS GALLEGO IG: @andresgallego_photography Born in Spain in 1983, Andrés Gallego began his relationship with photography in 2017. He has found in this art a form of personal expression, which allows him to realise his ideas and projects in a creative and different way. A great lover of photography in all its disciplines, he has found in staged portraits a way of creating parallel worlds in the style of the old masters. Practically self-taught, he has drawn his inspiration from classical painting and from artists such as Eugenio Recuenco, LeTurk, Gregory Crewdson and Kate Woodman, among others.
JOOST RUTTEN IG: @toastoasr Joost Rutten (2004) is a conceptual photographer who fell in love with the medium after getting a camera during the pandemic in 2021. In February 2022 he released "Nothing is Supposed to Make Sense", his first cohesive body of work consisting of 50 images made over the course of 6 months. Joost's work is absurd, colourful but often dark at the same time. The locations he shoots at are rather boring places he finds while cycling around. All of Joost's images are selfportraits
CHRISTOS PATER IG: @xpaterop Having lived in five countries and having made countless trips, Christos was exposed from an early age to many different images. He was always touched by joy and sorrow and he was always reaching for beauty - mostly for self-healing. But it all started to make sense in the summer of 2021, when he discovered the world of photography. Since then he continues the hunt for emotions but now with the camera in his hands. Some things that have influenced him are: Caravaggio, Bach and Beethoven, his background in innovation, tango - dancing and DJing. Christos has already exhibited his photographs in the UK, Italy and in Greece, in galleries, photo exhibitions and festivals.
SARAH IMFELD IG: @sarahmfld The concept of ‘public space’ is a debatable term in street photography. Often enough, photographers appropriate public spaces as their playground for artistic development. Any person within the frame of their image becomes a ‘photographed subject’. Is it right to take pictures of somebody in a public space without their consent? What if the images of the photographer don’t align with the image, this somebody has of themselves? In ‘cette certaine chose dans un regard inconnu’, actor and photographer Sarah Imfeld challenges these ethical questions in street photography by exploring notions of truth (while documenting ways in which people inhabit public spaces) when giving the photographed person full liberty and control over their image. Taken in post-Brexit London, it also opens conversations about the impact of increasing economic inflation on the inhabitants of Camden.
ATHENS OPEN ART 15th July