Prophecies and Portals: Ariana Papademetropoulos
Ariana Papademetropoulos draws together archetypal symbols – shells, floating bubbles, female figures, flowers inhabited by human eyes, bodies housing plants and animals, waterfalls cascading through historic interiors – with luminescent colours built through translucent, resonant layers. Her imagery is dreamlike, surreal, seductive and prophetic in its ability to open beyond the conscious.
Image credit: Ariana Papademetropoulos, Glass Slippers, 2022. Oil on canvas. 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm). © Ariana Papademetropoulos; Photo by Argenis Apolinario; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
André Breton’s 1924 manifesto suggests that “the imaginary is what tends to become real”. This idea has been proven more than once, with our contemporary present giving substance to previously fanciful realities. My childhood television staples included Get Smart (1965–69), a program about (hapless) American secret agent Maxwell Smart, whose phone was embedded in gadgets – notably his shoe but also a tie and a watch. We have imagined self-driving cars, spaceships and portals to past, future and other worlds; what we are able to perceive is only a fraction of what is. Time and linearity are also arbitrary – past, present, and future are overlaid for many cultures.
So, when Ariana Papademetropoulos describes the inspiration for her Milan exhibition as having arrived through readings received via a psychic named Wendy, the concept cannot be so easily dismissed – even by an evidence-based mindset. Yet Papademetropoulos initially ignored Wendy’s predictions. She told VAULT, “I’ve been talking to Wendy for about five years. She would tell me about the paintings I was going to make and at first, I didn’t pay it much attention – but then I began to realise that she could visualise my realm more clearly than I could at times.”
“I think of making work the way David Lynch describes it. It’s like ideas are fish in the ocean, and sometimes you’ve got to catch them. A lot of the time, I’ve got the feeling of an idea but I am not grasping it entirely. Wendy is able to visualise the ideas that are brewing. For this exhibition, I’ve made paintings that are exact depictions of her readings.”
On-site, this will be illustrated with a performative element – a telephone booth where the readings are available as audio recordings. Papademetropoulos explains, “There is an element of humour in all this, but I like the idea that these paintings – despite all being very different from one another – come from this realm. The readings will add another dimension to the experience.” There is an echo here, too, of Breton’s invitation, 100 years ago, to the Parisian public when he asked people to come to the Bureau of Surrealist Research to record their secrets, dreams, desires and fears in a confessional space.
Born in Los Angeles in 1990, Papademetropoulos’s life was never likely to be ordinary. Her mother is Argentinian and her father is Greek. “At Easter, I go to Argentina, and every summer, I go to Greece. Los Angeles can be very ambitious and give you a certain mindset; I love the Greeks because they have a good perspective on enjoying life.”
She gravitated toward art early on, yet her parents’ profession (both are architects) appears ambient within the spatial depths of her work. Graduating from CalArts School of Art in 2012 required negotiation of a school more conceptually than technically driven. “At the time, it didn’t really have a painting program. I’m naturally more traditional in making figurative paintings.” The paintings that have built her reputation are, she suggests, similar to what she was making at high school.
“I am drawn towards occult sciences. My belief in other realms shapes my identity. Los Angeles embraces new age practices and, as a half-Argentinian, I’ve always had differing perspectives on spirituality.”
“I use a range of symbolic images – shells, flowers, unicorns – that I’m drawn to. I see painting as a universal language versus art being exclusive. I prefer to use imagery we can all understand.”
Recent paintings shown in Re‑enchantment at Paris’ Thaddaeus Ropac early in 2024 are theatrical. Papademetropoulos’ characteristic psychedelic colours – greens, blues and pinks – imbue oversized shells that occupy historic interiors with waterfalls flowing down their centre like veils, as in Organ of Magical Action (2024). Another interior, The Atmospheric River (2024), is cast in an eerie green light, with an avalanche of water pouring through an archway as nature invades a fragile, human-made space. And there is a luminescent transparency in the works, an echo of natural materials like pāua shell and pearls, which speaks to a high level of technical skill in her chosen oil-based medium.
“I don’t think of my work as being fantasy or imaginary-based. It’s very real. If anything, my work is trying to get people interested in reconnecting with nature and the spirit. It depicts what is already here, the divine feminine and connecting with nature.”
Invitation (2024) shows a domestic wall with curtains framing an ornate bed in deep green colours; a stream running through an opening turns into a small waterfall. Papademetropoulos says, “It appears that there are different planes of existence, and while the first can be disenchanting, going deeper allows for re-enchantment, synchronicity and the supernatural to occur. While science seems to demystify the modern world, I find that the more I learn, the more sacred everything becomes.”
The scenes unfolding in her paintings are often located within historic buildings. She recently undertook a residency at Rome’s Villa Medici, where she researched the construction of a permanent nymphaeum. Other projects include a film made in the Louvre titled A Mon Seul Désir (2023). In it, she floats on a bed through paintings that become part of her imaginary journey. “While I’m interested in the Renaissance, the art I relate to most strongly is female Surrealism. For me, those artists have a deep knowledge of esoteric subjects. I don’t think of it as absurd or fantasy. It’s tapping into something that’s real, another reality.”
New works for Papademetropoulos’ first exhibition with Milan’s MASSIMODECARLO include two focused on female figures with dream-like conjunctions. One stretches her arm high to expose a bullet hole in her armpit, which dribbles a beautifully crimson line of blood. A flower sprouts from the bullet hole, echoing the round shape of her nipple, as darkness behind the figure casts a dramatic shadow. In the other, a similarly naked figure lies on a blue silk sheet, a tattooed snail on her buttocks extending a silvery trail that spans the length of her spine. A third painting focuses on the corner of a historic interior, with patterned carpet and skirting boards as the backdrop for an ornately carved timber chair. Looking out at the viewer from the chair seat is the ghostly image of a cat, translucent, eyes startlingly blue within an otherwise muted palette.
In these paintings, the portals visible in earlier works recede. She describes them as representing a doorway between two worlds through which she has now crossed. “It is as though I’ve gone to the other side, where it’s about feeling free enough. I think being interested in psychics and other dimensions is maybe not taken seriously in art. But that’s my truth.”
Her American gallerist, Vito Schnabel, suggests, “Ariana’s visual language is incredibly specific, shaped by her travels, her reading and study of art history, and of course her imagination. While I would never pigeonhole her as a ‘surrealist’ per se, I do think that the mystical, dreamlike, associative scenes she creates link her to many past masters – not just the surrealists but also the great Renaissance and Baroque painters of Italy – and to modern and contemporary filmmaking.”
In these dreamy depths, images offer succour, insights and fertile ground for wide understandings. Papademetropoulos’s growing international reach suggests that her truth resonates.
Ariana Papademetropoulos is showing at MASSIMODECARLO, Milan from September 12 to October 19, 2024
massimodecarlo.com
Ariana Papademetropoulos is represented by Vito Schnabel, New York.
vitoschnabel.com
Image credit: Installation view, Ariana Papademetropoulos: Baby Alone in Babylone, Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York, NY, 2023; Artworks © Ariana Papademetropoulos; Photo by Argenis Apolinario; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
Image credit: Ariana Papademetropoulos, All Flesh is Grass, 2024. Oil on canvas. 14 x 10 inches (35.6 x 25.4 cm). © Ariana Papademetropoulos; Photo by Flying Studios; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
Image credit: Ariana Papademetropoulos, Horror Vacui, 2022. Oil on canvas. 91 3/4 x 108 1/4 inches (233 x 275 cm). © Ariana Papademetropoulos; Photo by Argenis Apolinario; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
This article was originally published in VAULT Magazine Issue 47 (August – October 2024).
Click here to Subscribe
