«… And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone…» (Zoumpoulakis contemporary gallery, Athens)
(Text : Theofilos Trampoulis)
”… And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone…” The neurotic body is a dismembered body. I remember, years ago, a seminar by French anthropologist François Lupu about the dismembering bodies of the people on an island whose name escapes me now; it could be Melanesia. It was a time when any talk about neurotic bodies fascinated me, and I knew from personal experience that the reference to a dismembered body was not just a metaphor but a literal, everyday experience. In that seminar Lupu had spoken of a population which had set the fear of dismemberment into its cultural and religious system in the form of a permanent risk of fragmentation: the faithful (in want of a better term) felt several times in a day that their body was about to fall apart, magically to lose its cohesion. Their cosmology had thus developed some chiropractic rites against this threat: they would place their hands, in a specific order, on the organs and limbs they feared were about to detach themselves from their torso, hieratically ending up onto their genitals. Lupu’s seminar left me relieved. What I saw as a personal ailment was, in an Antipodean anthropological system other than mine, a culturally organised faith. And my relation with my body as it was at the time—erratic, ritualistic, obsessive, anxiously checking by touch that my limbs were still part of my whole and keeping me alive—had its normalised equivalent in that remote world. If it had a therapeutic, comforting function in that world, it could also have it in mine. In the exhibition “…And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone…” of Georgia Fambris, the dense, chimerical, contorted, folded-up bodies—especially in the 2023 series My Nuclear Me, with its technically mature and boldly confessional works are in a similar borderline space between dismemberment and reconstitution. Some works, like Nuclear Me 4, bring to mind the Skiapods, the mythical creatures in Ethiopia who used their single huge leg to shade themselves from the sun. Indeed, the upturned leg is a recurring motif in the works of Fambris: as with the SKiapods, the dysfunctional nature of the grotesque, oversized limb adds a sensual quality to the body, as if amputation contributed to a manic propensity for (self-)pleasure. Others--Nuclear Me 7, for instance--retain memories of cubism, although here the enclosed volumes do not convey a formal experimentation but a psychological burden that crushes the body upon itself. The only elements to break up its introversion and open up the composition to the surrounding space are either the high heels from boots or, mostly, the pointy, weapon-like breasts whose nipples bespeak an expanded femininity but also a thorny protection mechanism. Almost all of Fambris’s works feature drops of liquid like punctuation, sometimes clearly drops of milk from the breasts and sometimes black drops that could be tears, blood or sexual secretions. The drops serve a morphological function, indicating the downward direction of gravity in compositions that often show a chaotic mix of limbs with no other pointers to orientation; above all, however, they restore the organic quality of the severed and crushed bodies and underscore their gendered identity: they are bodies that enjoy and bodies that are suffering. Femininity is always depicted in a state of entrapment in the art of Fambris. In earlier works the element of narration was more pronounced and often of an anecdotal character, as the main female figures were always set in relationships and family or social contexts that were highly alienating, in dollhouse-like apartment blocks or as part of the meal of grotesque men; the colours were dull, which in painterly terms revealed more clearly their roots in the artist’s studies in religious icon painting. After that time, the painting of Fambris has been following two seemingly contrasting paths: the compositions become increasingly freer, less narrative, or rather the linear, anecdotal narrative recedes and more painterly levels are introduced from non-conventional painterly idioms such as children’s drawings or cartoons. The bodies are fragmented, intertwined into vortices of limbs and disparate objects, getting denser and erotic with a pronounced, wild and often lustful femininity. The colours are stronger, pop, but the composition does not completely sever its bonds to the artist’s religious-icon background. Yet the gloomy feeling does not recede, and this atmosphere does not suggest a condition for liberating pleasure and regaining the body. Fambris seems no longer to examine on a narrative level—through, say, existential anecdotes—this unspoken existential condition that trapped the body; instead, she conveys it in painterly ways through the use of colours, the disturbed perspective, the solid masses of revolving limbs, the levels of her script. Two affects coexist: the surrender to pleasure and a suffocating sense of malaise. The two sentiments neither antagonise nor balance out each other, but the one is a prerequisite of the other. Both of them dissect the body and both reconstitute it, as the fear of the body’s dismemberment is the starting point for assuring its wholeness. In the exhibition “And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone…” Fambris expands her painting by using weaving and embroidery to convey her chimerical forms of limbs, symbols of femininity and falling drops. The double bond is depicted through the comforting texture of the materials, which also reflect the tradition of weaving as a staple of women’s pursuits. In Τribal origins and boots, Fambris’s anthropological bedrock comes to thesurface. Totemic, hieratic, chaotic and generative, the core element of the work, a vulva and an eye, emanates not drops anymore but cascades of wet threads which are at once sexual secretions and tears. The origin implied by the work is, of course, an allusion to Courbet—but above all it is aleads back to that primordial neurosis that constantly seeks its cure. The title of the exhibition comes from a verse in You, Doctor Martin by suicide poet Anne Sexton. Written during the poet’s confinement in a mental hospital, it addresses her doctor in a way that oscillates between an expression of desire and the degradation or fear she feels under the gaze that sees everything. On a narrative level, that magic that talks to itself, noisy and alone, is the magic of the voices of psychosis that multiply to exacerbate rather than disperse the loneliness. It may be that Doctor Martin represents that same gaze which dissects the body in the work of Fambris. Yet these vortices of limbs, the falling drops and the soft textures of the woven fabrics provide something beyond magic and cure, something that underlies Fambris’s entire oeuvre: tenderness.
Theofilos Trampoulis
"To νευρωτικό σώμα είναι ένα διαμελισμένο σώμα. Θυμάμαι, πριν από πολλά χρόνια, ένα σεμινάριο του Γάλλου ανθρωπολόγου François Lupu, για τα υπό διάλυση σώματα των κατοίκων ενός νησιού της Πολυνησίας που το όνομά του πλέον μου διαφεύγει – μπορεί Μελανησίας. Ήταν μια εποχή που με συγκινούσε οποιαδήποτε συζήτηση για το νευρωτικό σώμα και γνώριζα από προσωπική εμπειρία πως η αναφορά στο διαμελισμένο σώμα της νεύρωσης δεν είναι απλώς μια μεταφορά αλλά ένα καθημερινό, κυριολεκτικό, βίωμα. Ο Lupu σε εκείνο το σεμινάριο είχε μιλήσει για έναν πληθυσμό ο οποίος είχε εντάξει τον φόβο του διαμελισμού στο πολιτισμικό και θρησκευτικό του σύστημα, τον είχε τυποποιήσει υπό τη μορφή ενός μόνιμου κινδύνου κατακερματισμού, οι πιστοί (χρησιμοποιώ τη λέξη, ελλείψει άλλης ακριβέστερης) πολλές φορές μέσα στην ημέρα ένιωθαν πως το σώμα τους ήταν έτοιμο να διαλυθεί, να χάσει μαγικά τη συνοχή του. Η κοσμολογία τους είχε ορίσει τότε χειροπρακτικές τελετουργίες για να αντιμετωπίζουν την απειλή: ακουμπούσαν με μια προκαθορισμένη σειρά τα χέρια τους στα όργανα και τα μέλη που ήταν, όπως φοβούνταν, έτοιμα να αποσχιστούν από τον κορμό, και κατέληγαν, ψηλάφηση την ψηλάφηση, ιερατικά στα γεννητικά τους όργανα. Το σεμινάριο του Lupu με είχε ανακουφίσει. Ό,τι θεωρούσα προσωπική μου διαταραχή, σε ένα άλλο ανθρωπολογικό σύστημα από το δικό μου, στους Αντίποδες, δεν ήταν παρά μια πολιτισμικά οργανωμένη πίστη. Κι η τότε σχέση με το σώμα μου, αποσπασματική, τελετουργική, εμμονική, που πάσχιζε ακουμπώντας τα να διαπιστώσει πως τα μέλη μου εξακολουθούν να είναι μέρη της ενότητάς μου και να με κρατούν ζωντανό, να μου παρέχουν πόνο ή απόλαυση, είχε το κανονικοποιημένο αντίστοιχό της στον μακρινό κόσμο. Αν είχε σε εκείνον θεραπευτική και καθησυχαστική λειτουργία τότε θα μπορούσε να έχει και στον δικό μου. Στην έκθεση «… And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone…» της Georgia Fambris, τα πυκνά, χιμαιρικά, παραμορφωμένα, αναδιπλωμένα στον εαυτό τους σώματα, ιδίως στη σειρά My Nuclear Me, 2023, (έργα σχεδιαστικής ωριμότητας και εξομολογητικής τόλμης), βρίσκονται σε έναν ανάλογο μεταίχμιο χώρο ανάμεσα στον διαμελισμό και την επανασυγκρότηση. Κάποια, όπως το Nuclear Me 4, θυμίζουν σκιάποδες, τα πλάσματα της μυθολογίας που κατοικούσαν στην Αιθιοπία και είχαν ένα μόνο πελώριο πόδι με το οποίο προστατεύονταν από τον ήλιο. Εξάλλου το αντεστραμμένο πόδι ως μοτίβο επανέρχεται στα έργα της Fambris: όπως και στους σκιάποδες, η δυσλειτουργικότητα του γκροτέσκου, διογκωμένου μέλους προσδίδει στο σώμα τρυφηλότητα, σαν ο ακρωτηριασμός να συμβάλλει σε μια μανική τάση προς την (αυτο)ικανοποίηση. Άλλα, π.χ. το Nuclear Me 7, έχουν αναμνήσεις κυβισμού, μόνον που εδώ οι περίκλειστοι όγκοι δεν αποτυπώνουν έναν φορμαλιστικό πειραματισμό αλλά ένα ψυχικό φορτίο που συμπιέζει το σώμα στον εαυτό του. Τα μόνα στοιχεία που διασπούν την ενδοστροφή του και το ανοίγουν σχεδιαστικά προς τον περιβάλλοντα χώρο, είναι είτε τα ψηλά τακούνια από μπότες είτε, κυρίως, μυτερά, αγχέμαχα στήθη, με ρόγες που δηλώνουν διαστολή της θηλυκότητας αλλά και έναν ακανθώδη μηχανισμό προστασίας. Σχεδόν σε όλα τα έργα της Fambris, στάζουν σταγόνες σαν στίξη, άλλοτε είναι εμφανώς γάλα από τα στήθη, άλλοτε είναι μαύρες, θα μπορούσαν να είναι δάκρυα, αίμα, ερωτικές εκκρίσεις. Οι σταγόνες έχουν μια μορφολογική λειτουργία, καθώς προσδίδουν την προς τα κάτω φορά τις βαρύτητας σε συνθέσεις που συχνά συμπλέκουν μέλη σε έναν κυκεώνα χωρίς άλλον προσανατολισμό, κυρίως όμως επαναφέρουν στα κατακερματισμένα και συμπιεσμένα σώματα την οργανικότητά τους και τονίζουν τον έμφυλο χαρακτήρα τους και τα κατηγορήματά του: είναι σώματα που απολαμβάνουν και είναι σώματα που υποφέρουν. Στο έργο της Fambris η θηλυκότητα αναπαρίσταται πάντα σε μια συνθήκη εγκλωβισμού. Στα παλαιότερα έργα της το αφηγηματικό στοιχείο ήταν εντονότερο και συχνά έπαιρνε ανεκδοτολογικό χαρακτήρα, καθώς οι κεντρικές γυναικείες μορφές βρίσκονταν πάντα σε ερωτικά, οικογενειακά ή κοινωνικά περιβάλλοντα έντονης αλλοτρίωσης, π.χ. σε πολυκατοικίες-κουκλόσπιτα ή ως μέρος του γεύματος γκροτέσκων αντρών∙ τα χρώματα ήταν μουντά και από ζωγραφική άποψη κρατούσαν εμφανή την καταγωγή τους από τις αγιογραφικές σπουδές της καλλιτέχνιδας. Έκτοτε, η ζωγραφική της Fambris ακολουθεί δύο φαινομενικά αντίθετες κατευθύνσεις: οι συνθέσεις γίνονται όλο και πιο ελεύθερες, λιγότερο αφηγηματικές ή μάλλον η γραμμική, ανεκδοτολογική αφήγηση υποχωρεί και εισάγονται περισσότερα ζωγραφικά επίπεδα και στοιχεία από γλώσσες όχι κατεξοχήν ζωγραφικές, όπως παιδικά σχέδια ή καρτούν∙ τα σώματα κατακερματίζονται, περιπλέκονται μεταξύ τους σε δίνες από μέλη και παράταιρα αντικείμενα, πυκνώνουν, γίνονται ερωτικά με έκδηλη και ορμητική, συχνά λαγνική, θηλυκότητα∙ τα χρώματα είναι πιο έντονα, ποπ, χωρίς πάντως η σύνθεση να χάνει εντελώς τους δεσμούς της με το αγιογραφικό παρελθόν της καλλιτέχνιδας. Η ζοφερή αίσθηση, ωστόσο, δεν υποχωρεί. Η πολύχρωμη ατμόσφαιρα των έργων δεν σημαίνει απελευθέρωση της απόλαυσης και επανάκτηση του σώματος. Η Fambris δεν πραγματεύεται πια σε αφηγηματικό επίπεδο την μη κατονομαζόμενη, υπαρξιακή συνθήκη που εγκλωβίζει το σώμα, όπως στα παλαιότερά της έργα, φτιάχνοντας ας πούμε υπαρξιακά ανέκδοτα∙ με πιο ώριμο τρόπο την μεταπλάθει ζωγραφικά, στη χρήση των χρωμάτων, στη διαταραχή της προοπτικής, στους συμπαγείς όγκους από μέλη που περιστρέφονται, στα επίπεδα της γραφής. Δύο συναισθήματα συνυπάρχουν στο έργο: η παράδοση στην απόλαυση και μια πνιγηρή αίσθηση δυσφορίας. Δεν πρόκειται για δύο συναισθήματα που ανταγωνίζονται το ένα το άλλο ή εξισορροπούν το ένα το άλλο, αλλά για δύο συναισθήματα που προϋποθέτει το ένα το άλλο. Και τα δύο κατακερματίζουν το σώμα και τα δύο το επανασυγκροτούν, όπως ο φόβος για τον διαμελισμό του σώματος είναι το σημείο εκκίνησης για την βεβαίωση της ολότητάς του. Στην έκθεση «… And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone…» η Fambris διευρύνει τη ζωγραφική της χρησιμοποιώντας την ύφανση και το κέντημα για να αποδώσει τις χιμαιρικές της μορφές. Ο διπλός δεσμός αποτυπώνεται στην καθησυχαστική επιφάνεια των υλικών τα οποία επιπλέον ανακαλούν την παράδοση της ύφανσης ως γειωμένης στην γυναικεία επιτέλεση πρακτικής. Στο Τribal origins and boots το ανθρωπολογικό υπέδαφος της Fambris βγαίνει στην επιφάνεια. Τοτεμικό, ιερατικό, χαώδες και γεννεσιουργό το κεντρικό στοιχείο του έργου, αιδοίο και μάτι, αναβλύζει καταρράκτες υγρών νημάτων που είναι συγχρόνως ερωτικές εκκρίσεις και δάκρυα. H καταγωγή που εννοεί το έργο είναι βέβαια μια παραπομπή στον Κουρμπέ κυρίως όμως είναι μια αναγωγή στην πρωταρχική αυτή νεύρωση που αναζητά διαρκώς την θεραπεία της. Ο τίτλος της έκθεσης είναι παρμένος από το ποίημα της αυτόχειρας Anne Sexton You, Doctor Martin. Το ποίημα είναι γραμμένο, ενώ η ποιήτρια ήταν εγκλεισμένη σε ψυχιατρείο και απευθύνεται στον γιατρό της με έναν τρόπο που σε ολόκληρο το ποίημα κλυδωνίζεται ανάμεσα στην έκφραση της επιθυμίας και στην απαξίωση ή τον φόβο που της προκαλεί το βλέμμα του που παρατηρεί τα πάντα. Σε αφηγηματικό επίπεδο, η μαγεία που μιλά στον εαυτό της, θορυβώδης και μόνη, είναι η μαγεία των φωνών της ψύχωσης που πολλαπλασιάζονται, επιτείνοντας και όχι διασπώντας την μοναξιά. Ενδεχομένως, ο Ιατρός Μάρτιν να είναι το ίδιο εκείνο βλέμμα που διαμελίζει το σώμα στο έργο της Fambris. Όμως αυτές οι δίνες των μελών, οι σταγόνες που στάζουν, οι απαλές επιφάνειες των υφαντών προσφέρουν κάτι πέρα από τη μαγεία και τη θεραπεία, κάτι που λανθάνει σε όλο το έργο της Fambris: τρυφερότητα."
Θεόφιλος Τραμπούλης
"Χαλάουα" - ( "All I miss since forever", solo exhibition at Zoumboulakis contemporary gallery) (Text : Poke Yio)
Μια γυναίκα ξυπνάει νωχελικά και με δυσκολία σηκώνεται από το κρεβάτι. Ο άντρας της έχει φύγει εδώ και ώρα για τη δουλειά αλλά δεν θυμάται να τον χαιρετάει. Δεν θυμάται ούτε καν το όνομά του. Βάζει φίλτρο και νερό στην καφετιέρα με δυσκολία. Πριν προσθέσει τον καφέ αναγνωρίζει πως πρέπει να ανοίξει μια νέα σακούλα καφέ και της φαίνεται βουνό η διαδικασία. Αντίθετα το μπλέντερ που είναι δίπλα στην καφετιέρα μοιάζει μια κάποια λύση. Το τραβάει με τα δύο χέρια λίγο έξω και σιγουρεύεται με ένα πάτημα πως λειτουργεί. Ο θόρυβος που κάνει είναι αβάσταχτος και την ταράζει. Ανοίγει το καπάκι του μπλέντερ και βάζει όλο το κεφάλι της μέσα. Με μια κίνηση πατάει το κουμπί στριμώχνοντας ταυτόχρονα τον αγκώνα της μεταξύ καφετιέρας, τοίχου και μπλέντερ για να σιγουρευτεί πως το χέρι της θα συνεχίσει να πιέζει το κουμπί του μπλέντερ για ώρα πολύ. Mέχρι να γίνει ένα ομοιόμορφο ροζ Οικιακά, μίνι, δράματα Η Fambris βρίσκει ψυχική εκτόνωση μέσα από τη ζωγραφική της και αυτό φαίνεται από τις χειρονομίες της καθώς επιτίθεται στην επιφάνεια. Η ζωγραφική της είναι ταυτόχρονα δράση-performance και αφήγηση. Αφηρημένη αλλά και περιγραφική. Μας αφηγείται τετριμμένες ιστορίες, βγαλμένες μέσα από μια ανυπόφορη, υπαρξιακή, οικιακή βαρεμάρα. Την ίδια στιγμή κάτω από την επιφανειακή νωχελικότητα τα πάντα βράζουν. Η ζωγράφος βρίσκεται μέσα στο έργο της, δραματικά μπλεγμένη στα συμπλέγματα των ζωγραφισμένων σωμάτων, παλεύοντας σαν τον Λαοκόοντα να ξεφύγει, μόνο και μόνο για να βρεθεί ακόμα περισσότερο κουβαριασμένη, στραγγαλισμένη. Αναρωτιόμαστε σε τι συναισθηματική κατάσταση βρίσκεται όσο ζωγραφίζει. Σε έξαψη; Σε υπομανία; Η Fambris χτυπιέται σαν τη Virginia Woolf με το αναπόφευκτο τέρας που εκπορεύεται από μέσα της. Τρυφερή και μωλωπισμένη χαλαρώνει τα πλοκάμια του όταν παύει να τους αντιστέκεται. Κάποιος θα βρει τον R. B. Kitaj πίσω από τα έργα της Fambris. Κηλίδες καθαρού χρώματος έχουν την ίδια πλαστική αξία με μια απλωμένη, χυμένη ανθρώπινη φιγούρα. Το ανθρώπινο σώμα υπόκειται στους ίδιους ζωγραφικούς κανόνες και συσπάται ή διαστέλλεται εύπλαστο και ζουμερό σαν τη «Βιο- Χλαπάτσα», την αηδιαστική, απροσδιόριστη μάζα φτιαγμένη από κάτι που μοιάζει με latex με την οποία παίζουν τα παιδιά. Με τον ίδιο τρόπο οι γυναίκες της Fambris ζυμώνονται και απλώνονται, πατικομένες και εκτός κλίμακας, με μέλη που ξεχύνονται προς τον θεατή ηδονικά, μέσα στην πλαδαρότητα τους. Ένα κοινό σημείο τις κρατάει καρφωμένες στον θεατή όσο τα μέλη τους στροβιλίζονται. Το πρόσωπο. Με μια ναϊφ-αδιάφορη και προκλητική έκφραση οι γυναίκες της Fambris δεν γνωρίζουμε τι επιδιώκουν. Έντονα μακιγιαρισμένες ανήκουν καταγωγικά στις γυναίκες «αυτοκόλλητα» που ζωγραφίζουν τα κοριτσάκια. Με ένα μόνιμο χαμόγελο στο smoothie. Τα οικιακά δράματα της Georgia Fambris συμβαίνουν συχνά στη μεγαλύτερη εστία κινδύνου ενός σπιτιού, στον πάγκο της κουζίνας. Κάποια επίσης συμβαίνουν στο καθιστικό με μάρτυρα την τηλεόραση. Το τρομακτικό και το οικείο μπερδεύονται σε ένα νοηματικό ροζ smoothie. Το κορεσμένο χρώμα και τα συμπλέγματα με τις διακορευμένες ανθρώπινες μορφές φτιάχνουν μια εικονογραφία ταυτόχρονα συναρπαστικη όσο και αποτρόπαια. Το μάτι κοιτάζει ακάλυπτο και έκπληκτο τα οικιακά δράματα που εκτυλίσσονται μπροστά του γεμάτο περιέργεια και ηδονοβλεπτική, θηρευτική διάθεση. Ο ακάλυπτος της πολυκατοικίας αντηχεί όσα τα χρώματα της Fambris φωνάζουν. Είμαστε οι μόνοι αυτόπτες μάρτυρες. τεράστιο στόμα και με έντονα βαμμένα μάτια κοιτάνε μεν στα μάτια αλλά και μακριά μέσα και πέρα από τον θεατή. Ηδυπαθείς. Ντίβες; Αυτοϊκανοποιούνται με το γυμνό τους σώμα έκθετο σε δημόσια θέα σαν τη λουόμενη Βηρσαβεέ, ανίδεες για την έλξη που ασκούν στο μάτι του θεατή; Είναι επιδειξιομανείς; Τις παρακολουθούμε να τριγυρνάνε γυμνές αραγμένες στις μοκέτες και τους καναπέδες του σπιτιού τους κατά τη διάρκεια της ημέρας; Νωχελικές, ίσως και βαριεστημένες, σαν να καθυστερούν μια επώδυνη και αφόρητη οικιακή ιεροτελεστία, όπως τη χαλάουα ή να αποψύξουν το κρέας, αναβάλλοντας για πάντα το βραδυνό.
POKA -YIO
«Οι χορευτές»
Οι κινήσεις οφείλουν να είναι προσεκτικές γιατί τα σώματα μας σπάνε σαν ελαφριά ξύλα, τα κρανία κοκάλινα και εύθραυστα οδηγούν τον βηματισμό μας σε μια εξωφρενική ησυχία, είμαστε χορευτές, είμαστε καθηλωμένοι σε μια αέναη δυσκινησία, τα δάχτυλά μας διαγράφουν μια πορεία προς μια μαύρη τρύπα, που ρουφάει τα σπλάχνα μας, τα μάτια και το δέρμα, μα εμείς χορεύουμε καλύτερα από πριν, με μια σταθερότητα στο βλέμμα ανυπόφορη, σε λίγο τα πρόσωπά μας θα εκραγούν, μια ζωντανή λάμψη θα θυμίζει ότι στεκόμασταν εδώ, αιώνιοι χορευτές, κανείς πια δε θα μας θυμάται, μα εμείς χορέψαμε όσο έπρεπε για να είμαστε αυτοί που ήμασταν.
Δημήτρης Σωτάκης
A gaze open beyond the visible
("Entity Battlefields", Pinacotheque of Cyclades, Syros) (Text :Charis Kanellopoulou)
The painting of Georgia Fambris conveys the representation of a world at once familiar and distinct, related to the visible but far from a photorealistic rendering of it. The leading role in the imagery of this world belongs to women; intense contemporary figures, playful or pensive, sometimes dynamically complacent and sometimes strangely sad, with an ostentatious or 'dented' beauty, relate 'episodes' from their life that are open to observation, not so much through the gaze but mainly through the mind and emotion. Fambris herself sees the images she creates in her painting as "equivalent to her own subjective view" of life itself, with this personal understanding stemming from constant introspection and the careful scrutiny of all external stimuli from a critical viewpoint and in a psychographic mood. Through this approach, the painter's world is occupied by narratives with logical or 'absurd' symbolisms and an expressionist tension, aimed at 'sabotaging' the anticipated rendering of the female form with humour, subtle irony and an inner sensibility; she comments on the stereotypical female image as constructed by the fashion industry and adopted by society, proposing instead the recognition of uniqueness and self-definition. To Fambris, this process of seeking different meaning and knowledge starts from the desire for moving away from certainty, for rearranging facts and for constant subversion. This is a conscious choice, promoted by the way she handles her subjects as well as by the painterly terms on which she moulds the multilevel spaces inhabited by her figures. Investing in the expressive power of colour and its structural properties, the artist processes the surface, shapes her forms with an instinctive impulse and builds the composition by bringing together disparate elements whose common traits are a chromatic tension and the way they convey the impression from the original stimulus. The surprises, the contrasts or even the conflicts that arise along this course which is full of energy are both deliberate and welcome; after all, this is the way to keep open a channel of observation of the things one can see by transcending the rules and limitations of tangible reality and proceeding to readings via the conscious and unconscious power of the soul.
A critical note of Viana Conti for the " Accidental Identity " series
GEORGIA FAMBRIS "Accidental Identities " arcylic on paper, 30X20 each, 2018 Georgia Fambris, born in Genoa (1973), currently residing in Athens, puts into practice her creative vis in the pictorial field, exposing fifteen acrylics on paper with the significant title Accidental Identities. They are outlined faces, splashes of color on the eyes, open, closed or a sideway glance. A black mark on the next sheet extends to one shoulder, neckline, collar, tie, almost like she wanted to put the subjects in communication. The natural way with which Georgia Fambris is constructing a sequence of faces by deconstructing them, suggests that all of them come from her inner visions, almost like a potential need for action, unstoppable invention. The brushstrokes dictated by instinctual thrusts, by gestural automatisms, draw with quick touches, from a palette of warm, cold and neutral colors. In her work the figures float in space, drown in puddles, rise in fragments, seized by excitement of unseen apparition and disappearance. We observe a daily scenario: in some parts splendid, in other filthy, objects and people floating in space, broken houses with ruined interiors, generational painting of adults, children, adolescents, old people, immersed in the deafening noise of the world, lived as horror vacui or horror pleni. The lifeless spaces, littered with memories, familiarize the sacred and the profane. Producer of phantasmic imagerie, Georgia Fambris represents life as a playground of the absurd, an incessant flowershing of rejection.
" Analogon" solo exhibition, Ena Gallery, Athens,Greece. Text of Cristina Sotiropoulou for the catalogue of the exhibition "Analogon" 2015, Ena Gallery, Athens. 2015
There is no doubt that our era is characterised by the omnipotence of the picture that tends to substitute completely the speech. People are barraged constantly with visual stimuli of every kind and as a result they appear symptoms of full saturation or even of artistic anhedonic making the work of the artist a feat. Today it is almost impossible for the creator to manage to penetrate with his/her artwork the walls of indifference or of complacency that this oversupply of images has raised. For exactly this reason, the painting of Georgia Fambris finds its target: in no case lets you unmoved. Even when you look has abandoned the orgiastically promiscuous universe of her artistic compositions, a sui generis universe full of frenzied movement and intoxicants colourfulness, you realise suddenly that the mind keeps remaining captive of the mysterious enigmas, of the challenges that it has set by itself.
Indeed, in front of her artworks the thought of the spectator looks blocked at a peculiar land of lotus-eaters, a land beyond time and space, a place where – even temporarily – thanks to the relieving function of art, somebody can forget the world around them. Furthermore, this is not the real role of art? Even for a little can act as «pafsilipon», reliefs the people from the suffering of everyday life, comforts them for the tragic mortality of their own existence offering the escape from the brute reality.
In front of the paintings of Georgia Fambris, the words of Jane MacAdam Freud, great-granddaughter of the major psychoanalyst but also famous artist with important personal work, regarding the role of the artist look more timely than ever: «I find very interesting» says MacAdam Freud «the idea that the artist can operate as potential pcychotherapist, as a stable benchmark at the lifes of people. I believe that we, the artists, derive our subjects from the collective unconscious which by nature is timeless. Consequently, we constitute the channel of ideas and actions –potential and actual- at the ether. The artists due to their sensitivity and imagination, act as the collective voice for anything cannot be told or constitute shaped thought (given that the thought constitutes act of the conscious). This which is unexplained at the behaviour of the people and some attribute to a spiritual cause or another kind of power, I think that stems from the subconscious. The subconscious operates more or less as we believe that God operates, without though his cheap sentimentalism. Art is not sentimental. Neither judges. It simply presents with the maximum possible human integrity whatever exists at the ether, such as for example what somebody might feels on some level.»
Within this framework we should see finally the role of painting of Georgia Fambris, a painting almost cathartic and in final analysis potentially redemptive. The spectator traversing an intense mental process wich reminds ritual of initiation since it is marked from consecutive stages of experiential conquest of a final truth, is driven finally to a kind of self consciousness and redemption that simulates a lot to the process of psychoanalysis. So, in a first phase, the unsuspected and largely blissful spectator, as they stand face to face with her complex artsist universe, a universe epic, complicated and only ostensibly difficult to be interpreted given that it is composed by multiple enigmas and riddles and is vibrated by explosions of light and colour, a universe too different from the one which has used and perceive everyday with their senses, feel inevitably the disturbance of the unintimate with the meaning that Freud used to call «das unheimlich». Furthermore, the role of art is to act as the medium that will bring at the surface the repressed memories, the fears, the guilts of the spectator. In this way it exorcizes them since it exposes at the light of the conscious, conquering finally the tranquillity of the self consciousness.
Exactly in this way, the artworks of Georgia Fambris operate and it is characteristic that despite the sense of disturbance that this world initially conveys because of the inherent reluctance that accompanies every immersion at the unconscious, the existential search and the anxiety of the meeting with the new and different, the spectator never reaches the point to feel threat or fear. Subconsciously they recognise that the world they have in front of them, in spite of the subversion of the classic rules of painting, the deliberate deformation of the space and the extreme expressionism of the bodies and expressions, it is not a stranger to him, it is not completely unknown: it is about things of their own, thoughts, memories and experiences that until now had thoroughly hidden at the margin of the consciousness trying to ignore them. However, they always were aware that deeply some time they should confront them and negotiate with them, otherwise they will chase them for ever.
Georgia Fambris so derives her inspiration from the collective unconscious, the primitive memories that everyone carries inside from the very moment of the conception and which she manages to transform at the artistic equivalent of psychotherapeutic process. In no case, though, this immersion at the collective unconscious does not imply the loss of the possibility of self expression. In the contrary, her work is not exhausted at a formalistic symbolism but composes more than anything else a sincere personal consignment that is characterised by a deep experientiality where the figures result through an instinctive sensory and mental processing and search. As she declares by herself, «whatever is revealed is my opinion, a subjective reflection of the world at my senses that I try to name by giving it a shape.» In essence, at exactly this point lies its successful therapeutic role: it is about an interactive artwork which aims simultaneously at two recipients, the spectator, the audience, but also the creator herself, constituting finally the expression of her deeper personal need for expression and creation.
In fact, it is characteristic of the artwork itself to offer firstly at the creator an escape of expression, a mean of depicting of their being, through whom is made possible its communication with the others. At the artwork of Georgia Fambris this sincere need of expression is so obvious and intense that finally concludes breaking any barriers and suspensions and dominate at the whole painting surface. Actually it is about for a «sacred hunger» of creation, for a fundamental need of self definition through her work. It will not be exaggeration to say that Georgia Fambris paints to live, her painting is so necessary and integrally connected with her own existence as her breath. Having as a starting point a marginal representation which she does not hesitate sometimes to reach at its limits, abolishing the conventional space, distorting analogies and deforming the volume, being indifferent to conventions such as perspective and the third dimension, she manages essentially to attribute materially, through the color and the canvas, the intangible world of her intense mentality and her rich imagination. So, in essence her artworks are recomposed at what Sartre calls «analogous», which is the mean for the expression « of an unreal total of new things, things that anyone has never seen neither will see ever, that do not exist at the painting and that the mind may capture them only in condition of «demonic seizure»* This appears finally at the result, the artwork itself, which is distinguished for the complete sincerity of the artistic writing and is immediately perceived by the spectator.
It is not random additionally that Georgia Fambris has dealt thoroughly with Byzantine Iconography. This preoccupation with this art seems to have played decisive role at the formation of her artistic idiom. The need for the absolute obedience to the rules and the total eradication of any element of individuality that dictates the doctrine of Iconography has undoubtedly contributed largely either indirectly or directly at the shaping of her desire for full liberation, for breaking of the academic rules and conventions something that finally so characteristically governs her work. In fact, somebody could claim that in essence this intensified even more an already existed, inherent internal need for self expression by on rules and limitations. It is difficult for an artist to balance on two boats, but Georgia Fambris do it successfully, reaping additional benefits from this experience since she manages to familiarise elements from both worlds. Something like that is obvious at the colour of her artworks which is intense and bold shaping often fields of intense contradictions of light and shadow. Such a typical use of colour someone could claim that reveals an almost existential need of liberation that characterise her work, a need that stems too deeply and finally is recomposed into a boldness that only somebody who has been deprived a lot the absolute artistic freedom by painting according to the Byzantine way is able to demonstrate. In parallel, especially impressive is the use of the light, something which also may echoes a distant memory of Byzantine style, given that dominates the impression that it is completely autonomous, with the figures often be appeared totally self lighted, liberated from any idea of naturalism or convention at the framework of the need of a realistic representation.
Of course, Georgia Fambris unboubtedly dispose inherent chromatic instinct which is manifested at the convenience with which builds chromatically her compositions without being afraid of the conflict with the narrative complexity of the content succeeding in this way a difficult balance between colour and form. Important role at the shaping of this instinct should have played the constant communication that keeps with the artworks of great painters of the western civilisation, contemporary as well as older. This is revealed through the love and the respect that is expressed by the indirect and the direct references to creations-milestones of the history of art and dominate at the imaginary artistic dialogs on which she sets up her compositions.
However, never, and this is which is important, despite any external reference, the work of Georgia Fambris loose its identity. It manages constantly to be recomposed in an expression authentic, completely original and personal, integrally connected to the almost primitive, primary need of the creator for personal expression and freedom.
Text of Roberto Merani* and Bruno Meneghelli* for the catalogue of the exhibition " Georgia Fambris, Painting". )
"Georgia Fambris , The material of memory"
Georgia Fambris makes you stop. She leaves you motionless thinking of her there, like a " prisoner"of the two dimensions of the image, focused on setting and unsetting spaces, on directing the characters and interpreters in the theater of pains and feelings ,of the ill nostalgia, of the morbose melancholia served in surgical sections, as champions of a narcissistic pain that seems to not have the intention of getting out of the way.
Georgia's images originate from a material that resembles to dream and memory. They evoke the experience and elaborate it following a clear path guided in the traces of the autobiographical life. A place where a probable icon of yourself can connect wordls that seem far from each other, almost incompatible, where the image remains still like the memory of a never-taken photograph overseeing the border. The body belongs to the sensitive sphere, it is an anchor to the phenomenal reality that does not become a tale though, it is rather an occasion to be unveiled. The child's incredulous find is only threatened by the adolescent anxiety that makes an attempt to the certainties of the adults and their roles.
The formal strategies that the artist offers in order to solve her experiment, articulate in some essential modalities between the mimesis of the spatial coordinates of the painted scene and the horizontal line of the color on the canvas. They breaks loose from the rules of representation and confirms the unavoidability of the sign, the rebellion of the material from the meanings. Nothing transpires from the canvas that encompasses everything, holding and controlling the ambiguities of its "screens" populated in the labyrinth of the shapes with no gravity, as in the flux of thought that arrives at first in a dream, as the weight of a plausible reality in the depth of the dimensions.
As a matter of fact, Georgia's expressive world is free from concluded shapes, but is in the search of a measure, a confirmation on the surface, since it is the only thing allowed to stop the drain of shapes, images, memories and sounds. The instability of the experience tries to regain its composure. Her painting is informed by the video, photography and by the sequence, but she wants to be there on the canvas to collect and record a different material that appears sometimes by chance or in the regard for the execution, sometimes as a result of a positive style in the coat of paint.
The play of references and mirroring correspondences breaks the idea of continuous and readable space and introduces the public to inner landscapes, territories of domestic limitation crossed by the trace of an extemporaneous and exhausted intimate story constantly interrogated by the shape. A formal result eroded in the solemn walking of the painting or told by the humid clash of watercolors or ciphered among the automatic writings on the inks, of the material that becomes body fluid. The liquid ink of the paper, the acrylic scratched out and evaporated painting are the opportunity of the case from which it emerges a trace consumed like the memory of a vivid carnality. Sometimes it is ferocious and experienced through a suffering feminine sensitivity, herald of an almost certain redemption in the awareness of who knows how to immerge into the vital flux generating a continuity.
Hieratic feminine shapes regulate the space and are the body that Georgia uses when trying to organize time and memory. Autobiographic feminine shapes, authentic or imaginary self portraits fill the spaces showing themselves, tuning in, feeling the pulse of the surfaces, membrane of reality to feel its pitching, the spasms of the body mixing up with the memory of what have been felt physically and what the memory makes us feel without showing it.
The shape that rises and becomes a guardian and a warrant of a "non-story" without a solution of a continuity is a cage the author wants to pick the lock and get rid of.
It is the shape deriving from the orthodox icons - that Georgia knows and carries out- steady and unchangeable in tis patriarchal habit, eternal and ample like a big mother, memory of a severe painting, ungenerous in practice and discipline to which you end up to belong, though it is difficult to liberate from. The fleeting and interlocutory features of the portraitist Goya emerge. They openly dialog with the fake modesty of Balthus' shapes showed off in an unrestrained voyeurism playing with a childhood still untouched by the adolescent torment, astonished while looking at the adults' sexuality. The children confined in their playpens, confined in the fourteenth-century shape and light, seem to be left out from history, judges and victims of dynamics that overtop them and keep them at a margin : unreciprocated lovers, contacts as wounds and contaminations, anatomic fragments as broken and forgotten plays, hands, faces. The crowd of appearances that the artist cuts out with a silent campiture. It is the Baconian artifice not intended to notice the pulsing vitality of an event but rather its memory, its latent image.
This is how Georgia Fambris builds structures and spatial cages to put on the scene her characters. Sometimes Georgia's route seems to slow down, and the frenetic activity of interweaving a thick weft seems suspended. The graphics, the drawing, the watercolors are the occasion to have a break. On the light frame the idea stop, but the body and its problems do not arrive. The ideas are relentless, timeless, their consistency is shiner and sharper, sensitive to the shape and light of other appearances. Stolen from the horror vacui of the painted works, the graphic instrument moves a less complex phenomenal dimension, where Georgia is able to stop the process and to deduct a subtle balance between evocation and structured image. From a material that both suggests and rejects, interlocutory features crop out, questioning us about their own existence.
Georgia's desire is always the one of the image, there is no nothing. The image is like an instrument, it is a metaphysical utensil capable of being thought and void thought at the same time, it is image as illness and cure, able to remember and keep us apart through the appearance of the self from the memory.
Bruno Meneghelli, Roberto Merani.
* Roberto Merani is professor in the Academy of Fine Arts of Genova, Italy. * Bruno Meneghelli is an italian painter.