Lydia Delikoura

Hedgehog spines, discarded consumer package labels, and other found objects worm their way into intricate compositions. The seemingly disconnected fragments, both personal and familiar, symbolic and mundane are homogenized; all belonging to a poetic flow of stuff, creating new non-hierarchical systems.

This horse diptych is a dialogue between a marble horse sculpture in the archaeological museum of Eleusis and its industrial backdrop. It is an inquiry into the way these archaeological fragments sit within this evolving industrial centre. The paintings capture the layers of time embedded within the eerie landscape of the port of Eleusis. They question the symbolic nature of the archaeological fragments in relation to the incessant movement of industrial materials at the port. What is the spiritual capacity of these sculptures in their perpetually evolving urban environment?

The horses remain stoic amongst the disused factories and smokestacks. However, there is no hierarchy of elements in the paintings; graffiti, broken windows fragments and archaic motifs coexist harmoniously, nevertheless uncomfortably in their dystopian backdrop. The significance of the hedgehog spines in the paintings are an earthly allusion for the viewer. They form the eyelashes of the horses and are the harshest element on the surface; these are the window into the spirit of the horses which enables them to be perceived as portraits.

In the images she creates, we notice that Delikoura reappropriates both objects and symbols of a mass production culture, reducing them with the use of cultural signifiers, such as Byzantine motifs, to a unique “world” of her own, a visually structured environment. Byzantine motifs are often the crux of the work; emerging in three-dimensional form and gradually dissipating to the surface, where they fragment and transform into living and breathing flora and fauna. Her process of creating the works starts from the formation of preliminary lines marked on the surface of the canvas, which she perceives as the “waters” of a marble surface. These lines, either chiselled or woven, form a grid indicating the space where the artist will constellate an “environment”. Mysterious relationships between the natural and material elements that Delikoura has collected and arranged meet and emerge through a quiet landscape. Symmetrical lines and fixed patterns start to transform, and bursts of energy released from the fragments start resembling mythical creatures, celestial events, and biological processes.