In the beginning I was a keen SLR photographer. Over the years I watched with interest as computers became more and more sophisticated, and was intrigued from my very first Mac Plus by the possibilities the new technology was opening up. I enjoyed playing around with the (now-primitive) Mac Plus graphics programmes.
I forget exactly how it happened, but, for one of the editions of Antipodes which I edited, I had no drawings from Nikos Kypraios and so I resorted to my Mac Plus and created drawings on it for the magazine. (See Antipodes no. 25/26, Dec. 1989.)
Over time the capabilities of computers grew until it became possible to go beyond crude line and dot drawings to full colour pictures, and photographs manipulated with such precision that the manipulation is undetectable. One could blend many photographs to create pictures of imaginary scenes, and integrate that with graphic-art creations, themselves often digital. This was a dream come true.
I coined the term “photo-graphics” for this new art form with its endless possibilities, and it is the field I work in, in addition to straight photography. My output ranges from photographs—sometimes digitally enhanced—to digitally created “paintings”, and everything in between.
Katrina Ginis is a visual artist currently residing in Melbourne. With a parental background from both the Peloponese and Mytilene, her original heritage stems from Asia Minor.
Painting, drawing and the visual arts in their many and varied manifestations have been a source of fascination and an integral part of Katrina’s identity. Her personal aesthetic is predominantly figurative and representational and her practice largely centres around painting and drawing, working with oil, acrylic, watercolour, pencil and pastel.
She regards her creative practice as a means of self-expression which enables her to engage with and explore the beauty and complexity of existence. Her creative work is informed by her cultural heritage and her research as a scholar of Psychology. She finds great inspiration in Greek art, iconography, history, philosophy, literature, and mythology.
In 2012, Katrina was shortlisted for Top Arts and attained a perfect score of 50 and a Premier’s Award for her secondary school studies in Art. She was a finalist in the 2015 Manning Art Prize, finalist in the 2020 National Capital Art Prize and awarded the Tolarno Hotel’s annual acquisitive prize for 2015.
Katrina has presented at visual art related conferences at Melbourne’s Monash University and at The Unviversity of Melboune’s ‘Women, Art and Feminism in Australia since 1970 Symposium’. She has completed private commissions for original works, portraits and freelance illustrative projects and has exhibited works at various galleries including The Manning Regional Gallery, Gallery Voltaire, The Black Cat Gallery and Linden Gallery.
I was born in Anninata, Kefallonia in 1936 and arrived in Australia 30 years later in 1966. I always had an urge to work with wood – to sculpt it, sand it and carve it. In 1970 I created the ‘Kri-Kri’ of Crete from a forgiving, soft wood and in 1971 the classic trireme. A third work was produced in1974 of a Dachsund. I did not refer to imagery or models for these work, nor did I intend to create them – it was as if they needed to be produced based on an internal desire. In the early 1980’s a similar urged prompted me to illustrate graphite images of nature and in time, I moved onto acrylic painting. During this decade, there were significant findings of long lost Chinese sculptures and these prompted me to duplicate one of the a horse’s head that was unearthed. I felt compelled to pursue my wood carving craving, without having had any professional tutoring and without obtaining any formal certification. I feel that I have no choice but to produce these works, as they are called upon from within.
Anne Warren works in several different mediums including painting, drawing, collage and mixed media.
Her abstract paintings are responses to mood through several layers of paint with the final result emerging through erasure. This technique can have an element of planning with the final result emerging by chance.
The collage mixed media work dislocates found images into new and unexpected environments that can sometimes be described as plausible and at other times implausible.
Anne teaches workshops from her home studio.
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Distinction) 2009 Visual Art Diploma (2001)
Joy is a multi-disciplinary artist with works in puppetry, painting, ceramics, printmaking, digital imagery, and traditional icon painting. Her work explores the patterns, rhythms, and marks of nature in painted and printed forms and more recently from coffee cup ‘reading’ pattern imagery.
In her painted works, she abstracts the natural forms to a series of graphic units of strokes and lines. With these units she uses a technically simple form of printmaking and painting to build complex layers of colour, depth, and movement. Moving away from representing the natural world in natural pictorial form, she deconstructs imagery using repetition of marks to create moving surfaces of colour which allude to energy fields, wave systems and other unseen patterns within the natural world.
Joy (Economos) McDonald studied Fine Arts at Sydney University (1970s) and graduated at the Australian National University in Visual Arts in 1997 after teaching for several years in NSW. Now residing in Melbourne Joy has continued her art career in abstract imagery both digital and on canvas.
Her work is in several collections both overseas and in Australia, in the collection of the Canberra Museum and Gallery and in corporate collections. She spent time in Canberra on the Board of ANCA (Australian National Capital Artists) was a member of Craft ACT where she often exhibited as an APM, (Aust. Professional Member) her last solo there being in 2013.
She was a finalist in the Fleurieu Biennale SA in 2008, and again in three categories with two high commendations in 2011. She received a Rosalie Gascoigne Award from the Capital Arts Patrons Organization (CAPO) Canberra and a recipient of two grants from artsACT 2011 and 2012 for a Centenary puppet stage production and children’s book in 2013 titled, The Very Sad Fishlady, which was performed at THE STREET THEATRE. This story, and its subsequent production, was inspired by her Greek heritage with connections to Kastellorizo, in the Dodecanese Islands of Greece.
In her early artistic career, Joy began as a puppeteer with Peter Scriven’s Marionette Theatre, The Tintookies which toured Australia’s country towns. Here she worked with Michael Salmon, the well-known Melbourne children’s author. Joy has had over sixty exhibitions (ceramic, painting, and prints) and several solo exhibitions in Canberra and Sydney. She lives with her Husband James McDonald, PhD, who is an academic and a historian, specialising in Classical Greek and Canberra history.
Georgia Tsarouhas is a self-taught artist who has been painting for several years from her home studio in Melbourne, Australia.
Born a Greek-Australian, she spent many of her formative years living in Australia and Greece for significant periods of time, and her psyche has been indelibly imbued by her life’s experiences being intertwined with these two incredible cultures and rich landscapes.
In her work she delves deeply to create significant visual experiences, usually drawing on personal undercurrents, linking themes of memory, heritage, internal language, time, and being—with internal and external landscapes. She takes note of the fragile wefts and warps of the human condition and combines these with inspiration from nature—weaving in the intangible, the in-betweenness of things, of love and loss, solace and yearning, beginning and end, holding on and letting go, fear and euphoria, the organic and static, light and dark, the process of metamorphosis and transition, making the invisible visible. As she engages with spontaneous yet conscious gestural expressions of color, marks, and abstraction, the composition that emerges on the canvas is one that conveys the emotional imagery she experiences through this layered contemplation.
Georgia paints large-scale as a way to find an expansive expression for what is ultimately an intimate connection with her own metaphysical alchemy. This endeavour nourishes her like a meditation and is what makes the process of painting both alluring and intriguing for her. Above all, her paintings are about resonance and connection. Georgia states: “My paintings are visceral visionary landscapes that resonate with an emotional response to memory and experience of being and place, via abstractions of color and the velvety lusciousness of oil on a large-scale canvas.”
Georgia’s paintings are held in private collections in Australia and overseas.
A long term teacher and practitioner of Sogetsu Ikebana (Japanese Floral Art) and a key member of the ikebana community in Australia, having studied for 18 years. Along the way was awarded multiple accreditations, culminating in the final, ‘Riji’, the highest accreditation possible outside of Japan. In 2014, spent three months in intensive study at headquarters in Tokyo as the recipient of the Norman and Mary Sparnon scholarship.
Teaching since 2004 and, more recently, commenced teaching monthly Masterclasses for the more advanced students of ikebana.
Participated in numerous exhibitions for Sogetsu Ikebana Victorian Branch and Ikebana International as well as a Sogetsu Exhibition in Tokyo. Was invited to be a guest demonstrator at the Ikebana International World Conference in Okinawa in 2017, to an audience of 1100 delegates and 3 Royal Princesses.
Conducted numerous workshops and demonstrations here, in Victoria as well as Brisbane, Wellington and Christchurch. Exhibited numerous times at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and was awarded a number of prizes, including three firsts in the Shop Window Competition.
As the Sogetsu curriculum evolves, sculptural work has recently been introduced. This has given rise to branching out into sculpture. In 2017, in collaboration with another artist, created an outdoor sculpture for an apartment complex. In 2019, collaborated with artist, John Meade, in designing the 10 metre tall, street sculpture, Love Flower. Subsequently, is branching into large and more commercial sculptures and installations.
In 2020, due to the constraints of Covid-19, conducted a Zoom demonstration, hosted by the Mumbai Chapter of Ikebana International, shared worldwide and via YouTube.
‘A gesture in visual art is an expression of an idea or meaning which is presented and performed through the somatic effect on material and site. In other words, it is an expression of the body’s temporal rhythm, as well as a record of the body’s interaction and encounter with material and space.‘ Emmy Mavroidis
Born in 1965 in Melbourne, Emmy Mavroidis is a Master by Research candidate at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at The University of Melbourne. Currently, she is conducting research focusing on Drawing: Gesture, the Body, and Movement. At the Faculty of Fine Art and Music, The University of Melbourne, she earned a Master’s in Contemporary Art in 2020. Following her completion of her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) degree at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1986, she earned her Diploma in Education in 1992.
She founded Nyora Studio Gallery in 2003, a thriving arts centre in Melbourne. Emmy teaches & mentors other artists through the Nyora Gallery Resident Artists Program as well as holding exhibitions and workshops on drawing and sculpture.
2021-current Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts Master of Fine Art, by Research 2019-20 The University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts Fine Arts & Music, Master of Contemporary Art 2003 – current Nyora Studio Gallery Director, Melbourne 1991 The University of Melbourne, Institute of Education. Diploma of Education 1984–1986 Victorian College of the Arts Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting
SELECTED PRIZES AND AWARDS 2023 Artist in Residence at DRAWinternational Caylus, France 2022 Recipient of The University of Melbourne, Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship for excellence in drawing. 2020 Winner of the Arnold Bloch Leibler Award, Yering Station Sculpture Award, Yarra Glen, Victoria. 2020 Grant awarded, Nillumbik Shire Council. Time of COVID-19, Art and Cultural Development, 2019 Montalto Sculpture Prize, Finalist, Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove, Red Hill, Victoria 2018 Lorne Sculpture Biennale Small Sculpture Prize, Finalist, Lorne, Victoria 2016 Winner, Yering Station Sculpture Award, Yering Staff & Directors Choice Award, Yarra Glenn, Victoria 2015 Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, Finalist 2014 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize – Semi-finalist 2013 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize – Semi-finalist 1985 Clifton Pugh Drawing Prize, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Victoria 1985 The Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria Award, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Victoria
“In memory of Christella, whose work had a profound effect on the cultural life of the Greek Community of Melbourne, with the request that the following excerpt and images about the life and work of Christella Demetriou be used for inclusion in the Greek Australian Art Directory (GAAD).”
Media Press Release
Run and Fly, Monster Tooth!* A posthumous exhibition of paintings by artist Christella Demetriou
1st – 30th May 2019 Darebin Arts Centre, cnr Bell St & St Georges Rd, Preston, Vic. 3072
A posthumous exhibition by Christella Demetriou, Run and Fly, Monster Tooth!, will premiere at the Darebin Arts Centre on Wednesday, 1st May. The retrospective will feature a selection of works spanning Demetriou’s career as well as artefacts celebrating her diverse and multi-layered creative life. Esther Anatolitis, Executive Director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, will open the exhibition. Commissioner, Rosaria Zarro will represent the Victorian Multicultural Commission. Artist & curator, chair of arts Mildura board, founder of museum of innocence Mildura, Domenico De Clario, & poet Andrea Demetriou (The Inconsolable Clock) will speak about her work.
Christella Demetriou was an artistic polyglot. She not only excelled as a painter, but was also a composer, a classic instrumentalist of the bouzouki, an unknown poet and an athlete. A refugee from what is now occupied Cyprus, Christella and her family migrated to Australia in 1976. She exhibited widely and performed in both Australia and Greece.
As a painter Christella was an artistic cryptographer, she used abstraction to hide within her paintings everything she could not endure, everything she could not face. She paints her feelings, her despair at the elusiveness and the falsification of love, her inability to reconcile her dreams with reality, her mother with her father, life with death, the invisible wound with the visible indifference. The deeply rooted pain of being uprooted, of not belonging, and finally her constant and chronic confrontation with cancer are indelible themes of her work.
According to curator Mitch Goodwin, “Christella’s paintings make for difficult, but soulful viewing. They are darkly euphoric explorations of the contrasting, often conflicting, modes of abstract expression. They endure because they explore a longing; a constant search.”
Christella rarely spoke directly in her paintings, however the directness of her poetry and the indirectness of her colours are communicating vessels. From her hospital bed, when she was stripped of all sense of ego, insecurity or fear she spoke her last words of love. Looking her sister straight in the eye, she said, “People are afraid to look at love directly, it’s overpowering. You are pure love, inside out, upside down, from all angles.” She also whispered to her, slowly and in anguish, “Life is a journey in the desert without relief… but you break the nightmare.”
Monster Tooth was Christella’s childhood nickname. A day after her death, artist and curator Elizabeth Gertsakis wrote to her friend, Run and fly, beautiful one!
Christella Demetriou passed away in 2018 at the age of 52.
Poetry Night (related event). On Monday the 13th of May at Ithaca house, Level 2, 329 Elizabeth St., Melbourne, at 7 p.m., academic Nick Trakakis will present his translation of major contemporary Greek poet Tassos Livaditis, whose poems have been set to music by Mikis Theodorakis; Some of the most polemic poems of Vassos Lyssarides, legendary leader and honorary president of the Socialist Party of Cyprus , will be read as a tribute on his 99th birthday; Edward Caruso will speak about his new poetry collection Blue Milonga which travels across the natural and political landscape of Argentina and Chile; Garry Foley will present Andrea Demetriou’s poetry book, The Inconsolable Clock, which expands from the wars for resources to the existential dead end, and is introduced by Christos Tsiolkas; finally poems by Christella Demetriou, translated by her friend Pavlos Andronikos, will be read.
My artwork draws energy and inspiration from the land in its many forms, The layers of impasto and graffiti like marks are evident within my contemporary mixed media palette which comprises of acrylics, aerosol, collage, gouache, ink, graphite. Artists such as De Kooning, CY Twombly and Aida Tomescu have influenced my style.
The process of mark making became my focus when I joined the Drawing Marathon in Soho NY and worked under mentor Graham Nickson. The vocabulary of drawing crossed the boundaries of paint and my personal style broadened through unorthodox tools and exercises. As a result my art process became intuitive in its approach.
Bachelor Fine Art University of New South Wales
New York School of Painting drawing and sculpture
My art is fluid and interpretive. My recent project involves multi-media collage influenced by the luxury market.
“The challenge was not to translate everything I see, but rather create spaces which house the information.”
