A conversation with Ketta Ioannidou.
Your paintings are all very abstract, yet contain remnants of the visual world. What inspires your compositions?
I take elements, colors, and patterns from the real world in my abstractions, but there is also an internal aspect that is more about memories and psychological states. My paintings are inspired by my surrounding environment, whether that is the Brooklyn waterfront near my studio or the Mediterranean island of Cyprus where I grew up. They migrate between water, sky, and land. I paint what inspires me, rippling waters, wilted florals, early morning fog, sandy dunes, or moody skies simplifying them down to their essence - the shape, the colors, the feelings. Florals turn to camouflage, textures become skin, and sunrays convert to explosions, blurring boundaries between the tangible natural world and the one that exists inside my head.
Literature is also very influential to my work. I've been reading Virginia Woolf's The Waves, that follows the characters' thoughts as they are blended through their surrounding environment, in this case the sea, which becomes quite abstract like the currents of their inner lives. Another book that influenced me is J.G. Ballard's A Drowned World, which depicts a post-apocalyptic future where global warming has caused the Earth to be submerged to a prehistoric state, while the survivors state of mind is taken over by strange dreams and unconscious urges.
The abstraction in your work really highlights the quality of your brushstrokes. What does your painting process look like?
I take a lot of photographs that I use as references and often go back and forth between the digital and the analog, manipulating images digitally on the computer and sometimes making prints as references or other times just viewing the screen. I adjust the hue and saturation levels to make them more extreme and exaggerated to give the works an otherworldly quality, which I then further amplify with paint. Sometimes I start a smaller canvas before tackling a large one, or work on a large and small simultaneously so that I can experiment with different possibilities for each composition while maintaining a sense of movement and spontaneity. I paint wet on wet with drips and bleeds, softening and blending the edges of each brushstroke until they appear liquid and blurry.
Your artworks contain a lot of sharply contrasting cool tones. What draws you to the color palette that you use?
Cool tones may exist when the light source is more ambiguous. They also create a more calming atmosphere like the water, sky, and greenery in nature that counteract feelings of anxiety while giving the impression that they are receding into space. I am drawn to the quality of light in early morning or twilight hours when things emerge or disappear into darkness. My colors emerge from where the digital and natural worlds collide and additionally, I think from growing up in Cyprus, whose vivid blue sea contrasts with ancient ruins and arid mountains, that there is an almost otherworldly aspect to the colors I choose.
How do you hope that viewers interact with your work?
I hope that viewers slow down and get to experience the work through their own inward journey and how the colors, patterns, and forms may relate to their own memories.
What changes have you noticed in your own work over the course of your artistic career?
I used to paint figuratively: fashion victim Amazon warriors, protecting their waters against foreign invaders. Over the course of the years, the paintings became more dreamlike, nature got put through a blender, and abstract brushstrokes took precedence. My composition became more fluid, and everything started to appear to be in motion. Now I concentrate more on the experience and feelings I try to convey instead of predetermining what the painting is going to be about or what it will look like.