A chat with Athena Anastasiou

Firstly how are you feeling today?

I am feeling so excited about all the new collaborations I am doing through my art, to mention a few; with Jules at Blank Space Art amongst other London galleries and I now have an art representative in NYC to create a solo show in a top gallery here.

On a personal level, I am feeling very pregnant  I am over 7 months now and still working away in a hot summer studio in Brooklyn! This fan is my saving grace right now!

Where are you living for the lockdown?

I am living in our flat in Williamsburg with my husband, we were lucky enough to go away for a few months to the Catskills and The White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire which I highly recommend. You are surrounded by nature trails, cool streams and cute chipmunks! I even set up a studio in my Airbnb there so I could continue working. It was great to slow down, simplify my routine: meditate, make art, cook and spend less time on devices ;-)!

Tell us about your love for colour and texture:

My love and significance around colour have grown as years have gone by. Since I became a reiki practitioner in 2013, I feel colour can heal. Each colour is connected to a chakra which is associated with a particular body part and its proper functioning. For example, yellow is connected to your solar plexus and is linked to your liver spleen and stomach. So wearing yellow, eating yellow food or being surrounded by the colour promotes healing. Colour makes you feel an emotion, it feeds you and it is usually an unconscious thing.

In my work, I love the relationship between colours on canvas and how they form a dialogue. I enjoy placing adjacent colours together, like pink and orange or green and blue. (David Hockney tends to do this in his work). I can get lost in the world of colour and it’s a big driver and joy in my art practice.

The texture is a recent inspiration for me, especially since I did a 3 month trip around South America in 2019, where fabric and texture was an integral part of their culture and commerce, especially in Peru and Bolivia. I made a whole body of work based on how indigenous culture is present in contemporary young people. The series was called “The Contemporary Indigenous”. I interviewed and photographed youngsters around SA and painted them back in my Dalston studio. I explored weaving through the canvas and made painting look like fabric. I painted portraits of young people wearing clothes adorned in symbolism inspired by their native cultures but used modernistic colours and expression.

What do you think the world will have learned from this?

I think we have learnt to be a little politer and kinder to one another – I have never smiled at so many people as we pass with a safe distance between us.  I am finding a smile says so much.  I also feel the pressure is off from this constant feeling of now now now….all our clients have been wonderfully understanding about delivery times etc and to be honest it all they feel so much more do-able than the ‘sure I will get that to you now’ time frame we normally work under.

What inspires your work?

My most recent body of work called “Athena’s Mythology” explores my own personal mythology that speaks about identity and the core concerns of human existence. It's a constellation of my beliefs, feelings and images that construct my own explanation of the world.

I paint daily thoughts and stories. These stories are inspired from personal experience, conversations, observations and videos and books on the quantum field and the power of thought and intention. I am also looking at mythological paintings from the renaissance period and overlaying my personal reaction to them on top of the image. And continuing my research on western and eastern storytelling through mythology and seeing where that leads me.

Where and what is your studio like?

My studio is in East Williamsburg, it’s in an industrial building with loads of other artists. Spaces are compartmentalised yet there is a walk-though to other studios. It’s great

London, Dalston to Brooklyn, New York compare and contrast:

Moving from Dalston / Shoreditch to Williamsburg in Brooklyn wasn’t really much of a change! Haha. It’s very similar! Very hip, cool, arty, lots of restaurants and is now pretty commercialised unlike how it was 5-10 years ago! The main difference between the two is culture, between London and NYC; people are more straight-talking here and expressive and it took me a while to realise that they weren’t being rude (as English people would refer to it!). It’s been really beneficial to be more unapologetically straight and to embrace our differences. There is more hustle here - the feeling of you gotta make it happen yourself - and that anything is possible if you go for it, full throttle!

Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Summer Exhibition, that's one of Blank White Space's favourite shows of the year! Tell us more about the piece you are going to enter. Thank you! I am very excited, it’s one of my goals!  The piece that’s chosen is called “Bringing The Past To New Horizons” an almost 2m oil portrait painting whose clothes are woven into and the weave just falls to the floor. The portrait is of a young man called Merwin whom I met and became friends in Cuba, the symbols on his clothes are inspired by Yoruba tradition, a connection to his indigenous African tribe. His gaze is pointing forward and upward in an empowered way to represent his strong belief in being able to one day have freedom and abundance in his family and country.

Is there a message you'd like to share with us?

To not take a day for granted, and do so by becoming conscious of what we spend our time thinking about...and powerfully choose our thoughts, creating a life we dream of. (Have a listen to Joe Dispenza)

Artist Athena Anastasiou work can be viewed here. Athena has been shortlisted for the Summer Exhibition at the RA so I’d highly recommend investing in a piece today