ELEFTERIA VLAVIANOS

This series titled the The Memory of Pattern, is concerned with the issues of re-collection through the act of painting.

The choice of the motif for these paintings was predetermined. The motif is a section from a larger embroidery pattern. I have worked with this motif before on paper and in a book format. My first attempt to translate the pattern from paper to stretched linen canvas was unsuccessful and so I abandoned the project for a year. The opportunity to exhibit in the Annexe itself prompted my return to this endeavour. I began to think of, how colour might operate in this space;  and with this in mind I decided to think in terms of an almost monochromatic palette and more specifically ‘the glow of yellow’.

My attraction to yellow is both personal and cultural.  Deep Yellow, Orpiment yellows and Golden-ochre are the hues that my grandmother, Elizabeth Babayan used in her embroideries and in domestic fabrics. Yellow-gold, and Yellow-ochre are also the hues used as the colour of choice in Greek Icon paintings as well as in Armenian Manuscript paintings particularly those from the region and monastery of Vaspurkan.  In this regard, yellow is a link to culture, forgotten places and identity.

Yellow in its many forms, (as a dye, vegetative or mineral extract) is by no means a shy hue.  Its’ strong personality visually resonates a vibrating glow that can be seen as hovering above the picture plane. I have embraced these characteristics and attempted to tame them somewhat with the additional colours of silver and shades of white.

I have brought the ground of the painting and the motif together, into a symbiotic relationship, by painting into the negative space of the fractured pattern.  The act of painting into the negative spaces, is of particular interest to me, because it is an act of touching that which cannot be seen in order to reveal that which is missing and that which remains in moments of remembering.