PRESENTATION: Artemis Potamianou-I Want To Be The Hero Of My Story

Dynamic, restless, multi-talented; the list of adjectives that can characterize Artemis Potamianou is long… she is a visual artist, curator and founder & director of Platforms Project Independent Art Fair. She attained a BFA Degree from the Athens School of Fine Arts in 1997 and an MFA from the Staffordshire University, Great Britain in 1999.

Photo: Artemis Potamianou Archive

Artemis Potamianou in her solo exhibition “I want to be the Hero of my story”, presents five in situ installations composing a multi-layered narrative on the female condition, a continuation of the problematic of her previous solo exhibition “Your history, it’s not my story”. The defiance of social and artistic structures that characterizes her entire oeuvre continues to concern her as the exhibition title denotes. The exhibition starts with “Which side you are on? Fences”, a tribute to Emily Dickinson. The installation’s wire mesh, which in itself evokes strong associations, leaves little choice for the viewer by defining a predetermined path through the space. The shadows of the barbed wire on the walls and floor together with the red embroidered texts give a labyrinthine dimension, accentuating disorientation in a space that is empty in front of and behind the barbed wire. The then to maintain the authenticity of that voice, without translation and interpretation, in order to be judged and to take their rightful place among their male colleagues. Potamianou utilizes lyrics from Dickinson’s poems to return to the dialectic of managing fears, claiming identity, the loneliness of visual creation-and its questioning. The barbed wire refers to property, a boundary but also a restriction, an obstacle to free passage. But it is perforated. Ideas, creativity are difficult to harness, as the examples of Brontë and Dickinson show. “Silent Revolt” ia a series of building materials/portraits where personal objects are cemented, articulating a set of alternative narratives of stories of silent everyday life, a pattern of traces of women-real women-who lived in the past or live among us, claiming their space and their role in the fabric of things. Here, the grid is internal to the cement, an element that holds the structure together and makes it as solid as these women. The voice of the silent women is there, as long as one has ears to hear it, or eyes fence guides the viewer to the exhibition’s only access route, setting boundaries, as is the role of any good fence. After all, “good fences make good neighbours”. The stories of creation within confinement, real or that of obscurity and social restrictions continue in “The Supper”. The collage of the female creators in the work with sandbags and the iron frame/scaffolding that holds them at a distance bring to mind works of fortification in museums during World War II and ways of enclosing artworks for transport. Lastly, the exhibition closes with a game of perception and memory. “Gilt Cage” with direct references to the iconic Mary Wollstonecraft originally is just that: a piece of house cut off from its wholeness, enclosed in a cage. On the outside of the cage an empty chair, similar to the one inside, invites the viewer to sit down. At first glance, the covered furniture brings to mind loss, preparation for a long absence, or abandonment. Inside the cage, time stands still, the season does not count. The first reading of loss is shaken by the gloves and objects left on the covered furniture-the evidence of life afterwards. But after what? Who do they belong to? Do they belong to Nora from Ibsen’s Α Doll’s House who escaped from her cage? The interpretations are open, many, possibly personal, but the feminist reading of the play is clear: The woman inside the cage has escaped. The man who was watching her from the outside no longer exists. “Gilt Cag”e marks an end of an era.

Photo: Artemis Potamianou, May, Installation view, © Artemis Potamianou, Courtesy the artist & Enia Gallery

Info: Enia Gallery, Mesolongiou 55, Piraeus, Greece, Duration: 20/10/2023-16/3/2024, Days & Hours: Thu-Fri 12:00-20:00, Sat 12:00-14:00, www.eniagallery.com/