Irini Gonou is a Greek artist whose work portrays elements of healing and protection within ancient traditions from different cultures.
De Materia Magica is a paraphrase of the wellknown manuscript of Dioscurides De Materia Medica where the physician, pharmacologist and botanologist writes down the characteristiques and the healing vertues of the plants all around Mediteranean Sea regions.
The
element
of
nature
is
evident in the artist's work.The Protective Cloths are made of herbal dyed cotton, linen textiles and antique Indian silk. The inscribed reeds attached on them are some kind of amulets. In many traditional societies all around the world, the written word is believed to provide protection as well as the cloth is believed to be a protective living thing, recording life. Charged with the protective properties of the written reeds and permeated with the plants extracts, the Protective or Apotropaic Cloth emits protection, a kind of cloth-shield to ward off evil intentions
