“I cannot remember a time I was not scribbling, drawing or playing with paints. This is my way of being, my way of staying alive and sane. My professional life started as a graphic designer and illustrator, but I soon realized that I had to commit to what I felt inside me was the right path. My first exhibition was in 1995 in my native Greece. About forty paintings on illustration cardboard made with an airbrush. Since then I have studied and worked with a large variety of media, materials and techniques. From acrylics to oils and wax and from pastels to plaster and charcoal, each series of works demands a certain approach that encompasses a combination of processes. Art, just like life, is a constant learning experience. Each brushstroke, each mark, gives me a little more strength to move on to the next one.
I work with layers upon layers of acrylic, oil, wax and a variety of crayons, scraping and re-applying colour multiple times, constantly revealing and concealing different parts of the painting, in an attempt to create visual and spatial relationships among the different elements, to render visible the tentative, the fluid, the ephemeral.”
A Place To Wander
This series of abstract landscapes is called A Place To Wander - Tópos Koinós (Commonplace in Ancient Greek); a common space, a meeting place, a site to wonder and to wander; the locus of gathering and exchange. This series becomes a vista of possibilities, of plausible exchanges, not only for the energies and colours that meet to articulate the creative tension of disparate elements that are summoned to a place of unity, but also for the spectator, who is invited to participate actively in the making of meaning.
Les flâneurs quotidiens
In one way or another we are all wanderers and wonderers, explorers of neighborhoods and corners , of experiences and feelings, scavengers of dreams and things, daily exposing ourselves to the vicissitudes of beauty and life. Together or alone we shoulder the mystery of daily life…
Affinities
At first glance, we become conscious of the structural resemblance - the affinity - of these figures to each other. These figures almost seem like iterations of the same person. The closer we look, however, the more this initial resemblance becomes complicated by other forces. With no facial expressions to read, the body language and placement of the figures is brought vividly to the fore. Each subtle gesture becomes charged with significance and meaning.
"Affinity" refers both to a deep structural resemblance and a spontaneous attraction. The forces that sweep human beings together or drive them apart is suggested by the variety of the brushstrokes, the fluid drips, the flurry of scratches, and a sweeping, almost transparent veneer of white that suffuses these canvases with a movement we can feel more than see. (Excerpt from Art Historian A. Larose's essay "Affinities", written as an introduction for Lypiridou's solo show.
Fluid Scapes
Fluid Scapes is a collection of abstract landscapes which, in combining actual familiar lands and the primordial four elements, earth, air, fire and water, tries to capture the fluidity and spontaneity of the natural world in all its fury and beauty.
Windblown
Spring is in the air, love is in the air, the wind is blowing, we are exploding, flowing in the innumerable possibilities of life. Reality is bursting with multiple versions of beauty and we, humble followers of that beauty, we subscribe to its charms.
Solitary Voyages
Lypiridou was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece, a Mediterranean city with a large port. The sea view from her childhood bedroom and the beaches of her summer vacations, gave shape to her inspiration. Images of solitary boatmen negotiating the fluidity and fluctuation of water, became constants in her own life and art.