- Mar 26

Nadia Skordopoulou

Nadia Skordopoulou is a mixed media painter who has exhibited across Europe in Greece, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and internationally in the United States and Puerto Rico. She has participated in a dozen solo exhibitions in venues such as 10gr Wine Bar Gallery and Auberge de France à Rhodes. The earlier work of Nadia’s career span a varied discipline of techniques and approaches from photo-realistic oil painting to land art, installations, digital works, video, abstract ink and geometric acrylic paintings. Her current body of art entails mixed media acrylic paintings on wood with graphite and goldleaf. The mix between these mediums often give off an encaustic-like appearance to the surface.

Nadia’s paintings often contain elements of her native Greek culture, appearing like ancient Minoan murals or a nod to ancient Greek pottery. The highly stylized work often contains aspects of nature such as leaves, tree bark, and sunsets. These new works often contain gold leaf placed strategically to either convey a subject or to compositionally draw the eye of the viewer. An intense texture comes through from the wood panels and scratchy graphite she uses, causing the paint to smear rather than be delicately placed.

If we may focus on her depictions of vases, two pieces stand out in particular; The miracle at Cana Materials (top of article) and Journey of the Amphora (pictured above). The first piece offers a more clearer image of a vase almost in an art deco style while the piece above comes off aged and textured as if coming from ancient times. Variety in approach remains interesting through multiple interpretations of the same subject matter. Rather than the goldleaf being part of the vessels, they act as a sort of designed drapery covering them. While the painting at the top of the article has goldleaf almost in the shape of grape vines and leaves, the piece above comes across as a smeared abstraction. The monochromatic tones outside of the goldleaf are pleasant and almost come off with a minimalist application.

Her more abstracted pieces which are placed on the bottom half of the article contain paint roughly registered into the wooded surface. Although loosely resembling tree limbs, bark, and leaves, they almost come off as total abstractions. These distortions define her approach to painting as a study of surface and texture rather than of paint and color. The rough, almost primal paintings, have an aged appearance reflecting a state of consciousness before our time or perhaps a reflection of the raw aspects of nature. Often containing what appear to be aggressive brush strokes and even splatters of paint, the more abstracted paintings do not seem impulsive but rather ancient and poetic with their goldleaf application and glossy appearance.

Nadia Skordopoulou creates beautiful paintings which infuse a classical sense of design but with a contemporary palette. These bold works reflect two ages in diametric opposition to each other but integrated in a melodious fashion. With character and grit, and ranging in influence of modern art deco to ancient murals, the paintings leave us with signs of life and ambition. With consideration for nature and a passion for art, Nadia creates inspiring art.