The Whirlwind That Takes Me There

I’ve been making some new work in the last few months for a festival of mosaic art involving 6 Greek and 4 other UK mosaic artists.

We aim to promote a cultural exchange between Greek and British mosaic artists in order to develop friendships and a professional network between us and an opportunity to showcase our works together.

Each artist will be exhibiting new mosaic work inspired by their own personal interpretation of the theme Mosaic Odysseys.

There were many ways to interpret a mosaic Odyssey and like some of the other Greek artists I chose Homer’s Odyssey for inspiration. The Odyssey is a wonderful story about the journey of Odysseus and his men returning home after the Trojan war.

At the same time I was considering making a series about the long journey’s of birds and perhaps as a metaphor for the journey’s of refugees. As I sifted through the Odyssey for inspiration, it became clear that it was the weather Odysseus encountered on his journey that connected all three ideas.

The weather is something we all understand (in a manner of speaking), yet when it’s written about in a mythological story it is deeply symbolic.

So through the challenges of my own artistic journey I made my first piece …

Whirlwind drawing
Whirlwind drawing
Whirlwind in progress
Whirlwind in progress
Detail before the grout
Detail before the grout
Grouting
Grouting

Grouting this piece was particularly harrowing, I wasn’t sure if I should do it but there were some areas that really needed it.

The finished piece …

The Whirlwind That Takes Me There
The Whirlwind That Takes Me There

(smalti, glass tile, gold and copper leaf glass tile, Jurassic Coast fossil, gold lipped oyster shell/mother of pearl, glass tile, glass gems, glass rod, glass marbles, marble, slate, quartz, hand gilded metal leaf glass, foil backed glass tile, ceramic tile, milliefiori, paint)

In this piece I used quite a variety of materials. The gold lipped oyster shell was particularly exciting to use as it was given to me by mosaic artist Elaine M Goodwin, who told me it came from Boris Anrep’s  workshop supplies. Anrep created mosaics in the National Gallery, Westminster Cathedral and the Bank of England amongst other monumental mosaics.

 The shell(s) must have been very large and they are cut into good sized chunks with a saw but I didn’t want the straight lines so I had to break the pieces. It’s really tough shell and was very difficult to cut. I had to slice it first with a hammer and hardy before breaking it into pieces.

detail whirlwind fb
Detail – The Whirlwind That Takes Me There
Detail
Detail
detail
Detail

Exhibiting artists in the Mosaic Odysseys exhibition:

Greek artists :

Ioannis Touliatos, Artemis Klitsi, Eftychia Finou, Vasso Spanou, Lydia Papadopoulos, Alexandros Bassadis,

UK artists:

Dugald MacInnes, Nathalie Vin, Aliyahgator, Arianna Puntin, and myself.

The first exhibition will run for a week at the Hellenic Centre in London starting on Tuesday July 19th and finishing on Saturday July 23rd.

Meet the artists: Tuesday 19 July, 6.30pm-8.30pm.

The festival will then move to Athens with an exhibition at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation from September 9th to September 18th.

The final exhibition will be at the Muncipal Art Gallery of Mykonos, starting 23rd September and finishing 3rd October.

Have a look at our website here

Thank you to Artfinder  for publicity and for sponsoring our printing costs!

Come back soon to see my second piece for the festival that includes some vintage glass tiles with an interesting history

😉

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