A Few Words From Chryssa

Since childhood painting was a game, a way out, an escape into personal, imaginary places. Later, it became a way of perceiving life, a journey of self-knowledge…

Painting in nature entails awe, freedom, a feeling of inner vastness, a union with the womb, the universal mother, a feeling that I belong there, going back to being part of the whole, reconnecting to the Beginning. I am constantly reminded of the transcendental, the divine, and the primordial; of the unbreakable relation of nature and man, of the sense of measure; of harmony, balance, continuity, and the miracle of the cycle of life.

I am not interested in ‘depicting’ fleeting phenomena, but in the relation between the texture and the fluidity; I am interested in the infinite, completely abstract textures that turn into matter; in the fragmented form of the bottom under the translucent fluidity of the surface; in the vibrant life underground; in the contrasts between solid and fluid, dry and wet; in the magical way in which light reveals different textures.

Interpreting an inner reality, I make my choices, sometimes drawing and sometimes destroying, shaping by colour, light and shadow, driven by the emotions that rise in me, as I process the subject in my mind. I leave it to the work itself a new window/frame/ fragment of nature to guide me to its own painterly values and needs. In the end, the work revealed to me is almost always far from the original image I had in mind. The painting process takes me along other roads…

Over the years I have unconsciously brought my gaze downwards, leaving out the open, distant skies and horizons, whose existence is only reflected on the water surfaces. Thus, I focus on the infinitely varied, alive nature by penetrating, interpreting and decoding; inventing new ways and discovering methods and techniques to convey my own feeling using paint, drawing, form, rhythm or even actual natural materials on the canvas. The process interests me more than the final outcome, which only comes once the work itself does not allow me to continue.

I do not ‘stage’ my work, I make no drafts; I just ‘pour’ the image from my mind directly onto the empty canvas as it lies free and frameless on the ground.

By now, I find myself increasingly into the subject of water, which has preoccupied me for years.

Ι immerse myself in it, looking for my origins, I guess… I dive into the fluid, transparent, ungraspable matter with no clear boundaries, no shape or outline, like everything else around me, trying to understand the dynamic within instability; trusting in incessant motion and endless change –both key attributes of nature– and hoping for balance, measure and harmony; there, I let myself go.

“Υοu will always hover between representation and abstraction”, Pierre Carron remarked to me, back in 1990.