I am a visual artist interested mainly in the intersection between Performativity and Philosophy. Initially trained as a painter my research was concentrated in the abstract relation between elements as color, lines, and shapes. From the very start, my strongest interest was the movement occurring on the surface and stimulating the spatial awareness of the perceiver. I never faced the surface as a 2D picture but always as a ‘living area’.
Since 2005 have been attending several classes and workshops of performance art, contemporary dance (mainly release technique), physical theatre (Leqoc), Contact Improvisation, Yoga, Aikido and Butoh. In parallel, I experimented with the medium of video; as a natural process of union between the image and the movement, I have created numerous video-performances, either staging myself or directing performers and working/ editing the material generated in its filmic language.
The topics of my works are poetic and philosophical, and they tackle indirectly social issues. I create atmospheres to express feelings and thoughts having my lived experience as a starting point. Performance-based art is a medium that I use because I perceive the body as a container and conveyor of body-mind intelligence where different strata of experience take place and unfold. My work pays much attention to the site-specific dimension of the performance/ installation which I perceive as a live organism in constant modification: a togetherness.
I have recently been awarded the degree of Philosophy for my practice-based PhD in Arts. The research is entitled: “The body of the relationship. A practice-based exploration upon the relationship between the body and its environment informed by the notion of Butoh body”. My research is mainly focusing on psychophysical aspects of Butoh, hence Japanese phenomenology became central. Butoh’s potential to enrich immersion in installation art is my core issue.
http://www.northernlightsproject.org/soundingout/10-questions-eleni-kolliopoulou.html