Emanouella Strakiades: in pursuit of perfection
Written by David Knoll
17/7/2023
Emanouella Strakiades, Writing, 2022, mixed media, 38” x 57” (96.5 cm x 144.8 cm) © Atticus Arts Gallery
Even if we know or imagine what a painting should look like, few of us can paint a masterpiece that conveys elusive processes and nuances barely noticeable to the eye. However, truly talented artists have even more complex tasks than creating a masterpiece. For them, the challenge is not how to achieve some visual goal, but how not to achieve it too quickly or easily. For good artists, convenience and striving for perfection can become a dead end. So, they seek ways to redirect. They will erect obstacles, block their path, and create formulas that make their progress more difficult. And once they find that they can work too well in a specific mode, they simply terminate it, realising that an excessive pursuit of pictorial success will eventually lead to failure.
Emanouella Strakiades is such an artist, combining visual intuition with an understanding of the flow of art history and contemporary tasks of philosophy (aesthetics) in which she participates. Throughout her creative life, she has repeatedly doubted and radically changed the direction of her visual exploration of the world.
In Emanouella's rich group of early abstract works, broad, ribbon-like brushstrokes – some thin, some rich in colour – leave broad marks on the canvas. Their gestural loops and curves contrast and frame areas with loose fine patterns reminiscent of vines and floral motifs. Over time, organic curves and knots on a vibrating background gave way to more minimalistic experiments with the nature of lines and colour. Emanouella covered dense monochromatic fields of pure colour with calligraphic lines and splashes of paint, exploring the potential of automatism and expressive gestures in visual improvisation. In this method of art-making, she suppressed conscious control over the making process, allowing the unconscious mind to have sway.
Emanouella Strakiades, Ambivalence, 2020, oil and enamel on canvas, 47” x 32” (119.3 cm x 81.2 cm) © Emanouella Strakiades
After the development of painting had not ended with Malevich’s Black Square, Emanouella confidently paved new horizons for painting, exploring its new visual possibilities. At the East–West exhibition (Modus Art Gallery, Paris), we saw a new way of development in her canvases – the division of the compositional field in half. For example, in Ambivalence (2020), the horizontal axis divides the composition into two opposing and, at the same time, complementary fields of red and deep green. Expressive splashes of paint covering these fields to bring the design together, contrasting with the solid background fill. This compositional solution has become a new challenge – the net in the middle of the court. Dividing the work in the centre, Emanouella explored the possibilities of interaction between the halves that are two inextricably linked opposites.
Emanouella Strakiades, Untitled, 2021, oil on canvas, 68” x 48” (172.7 cm x 121.9 cm) © Emanouella Strakiades
Since the beginning of 2021, Emanouella has chosen a new direction in building her work on the tension that she achieves by imposing a rigid grid on a fluid, whimsical free-form pattern, as, for example, in her painting, Untitled (2021), first shown at the POCTB in Orleans.
Recently, Emanouella has come to the compositional apogee in her work. As she developed her visual language, as seen in works such as Ariadne's Thread Never Breaks (2022) and Writing (2022), she found an excellent way to balance free-form drawing with her unique grid architecture. The artist uses dense brush strokes to create intricate patterns of rich colour. Their outlines form intertwining forms that resemble a grid, lace, or the muscles and tendons of living bodies. The swirling arabesques are inspired by the natural vibration Emanouella uses to create a radiant energy field. While developing her creativity, her Orphic patterns became more and more colourful and dazzling. And just when her art has approached a stunning variety within itself, when the artist has reached the point of maximum of her chosen visual narrative, she seems to erect an obstacle in front of her and change the direction of her visual language development.
Emanouella Strakiades, Ariadne's Thread Never Breaks, 2022, mixed media, 40” x 58” (101.6 cm x 147.3 cm) © Atticus Arts Gallery
Emanouella whitens her forms, narrows and deepens the interpretation of colour, as we can see in the unfinished Milky Way (2023). The reduction process, purposeful and decisive, makes the paintings more concise and capacious. She connects the two sides of a composition divided in half by intertwining primitive forms and calligraphic lines. She then returned to these forms and lines, the strict geometric shapes connected by splattered paint, which we have already seen in a series of works at the East–West exhibition. The intricate forms we see now are more than cables holding the composition together. They are also agents that link the present to the past. In Emanouella's return to primitive forms, chaotic calligraphy, and even to the grid that she painted in these artworks lies the unification of the composition and the unity of her past and present. In their self-citation, these paintings reflect the course of Emanouella's art history and the entire history of art that always considers previous achievements.
Emanouella Strakiades shared her thoughts on aesthetics on July 16, 2023 at the Atticus Arts Gallery (11a Queen Street, Bath), at her charity exhibition Once in Doubt. All proceeds from the sale of the works presented at the exhibition will be directed to a fund to help Ukrainian residents affected by the Russian invasion.
David Knoll has published widely on international modernism and in 2011 was a Centre for Curatorial Leadership Fellow. From 2017-21, in addition to his role in the department, he served as Curator in Charge of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Centre for Modern Art and now sits on the Advisory Committee. David holds a Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen.
