YIORYIOS

Issue 34 Discovery artist Yioryios creates seamlessly fluid sculptures that are almost painterly in form.

I am intrigued with architecture, particularly mid-century modern design and the principles that dictate its aesthetics. Though I appreciate the functionality of architecture, it is the inherent values found within its abstraction that inspires my work. I am fascinated with being able to place my body within a piece of functional art and to be able to experience that art through so many ‘dimensions’.

When I move around and within a space, I see how it can morph into its surrounds as the light changes, and it is this notion that I wish to capture. I attempt to deconstruct the fundamentals of architecture, stripping it of its functionality and order to be left with what it is that creates the aesthetically fascinating dimensions that I see and feel when inside a well-designed space. The architecture of JørnUtzon and Harry Seidler are of particular inspiration for my current works.

As an artist, my inspirations also stem from wanting to explore and manipulate particular mediums. Although I completed my honours degree within the painting department, it has been a natural progression to creating these current sculptural forms. As a painter, I preferred using my hands. I felt a more physical connection to my work, manipulating and sculpting the paint ‘from within’. I now use aluminium, heating it using an intensive heat gun. While it is hot, the metal is more flexible and I am able to twist and turn it into a desired form. It hardens again when cool and hopefully I have captured the instant the piece grasped that fleeting movement, solidifying it in that moment.

Using heated and cooled aluminium has allowed me to attempt to capture an ephemeral fluidity in my sinuous objects, like photographing an instant. I want it to mimic those perceived constant changes in shapes, lines and spaces of an inspiring space that is bathed in a changing light, throwing shadows and creating stark tonal differences and geometric visual play.

Movement is very important to my work on many levels. I wish for the viewer to interact with my work, moving around the object, watching the cast shadow move, experiencing the shifts in weight, colour, tone, negative space and manipulating the shadow. The shadows that my objects cast are an integral part of the works and how they are viewed. The shadow morphs the object into a changing shape and size, reliant on its surroundings and conditions. The changing nature of light in turn creates further movement. I choose to apply a highly reflective, smooth painted surface to the objects to allow the piece to not only reflect its surrounds, but also absorb them. I want the work to take on its surrounds, denoting an integral principle of the architecture of modernist design. Ultimately I attempt to allude to one’s interaction with the beauty of the ephemeral quality of a space and our experience within it.

My fascination with architecture and curiosity as an artist has led my practice to where it is now, and I am looking forward to seeing what other mediums I can manipulate to represent and explore such a complex notion.

www.yioryios.com