Myrsini Alexandridi is an artist based in Stockholm working with ceramics and ink. She is a practicing architect, originally from Greece, always carrying with her the Mediterranean aura trying to harmonise it with the northern European aesthetics.
“Greece is my heritage which I carry with me both consciously and subconsciously. Her history, tradition, architecture, customs, and topography shaped me as a person, an artist and an architect and thus influence my work.
Through my work, I try to reconnect with my roots, the memories of the places I have been and the images I have from my childhood. I find inspiration in the astonishing Greek islands; each one carries a unique identity related to the landscape and the culture has flourished on it. But all of them together create a unity and an identity that inspires and directs my artistic vocabulary.
My family’ s origins are from Skopelos, an island in the northern part of the Aegean with a beautifully green landscape where the pine trees grow next to the see. On the other hand, I am charmed from the hardness and clarity of the Cycladic islands, where nothing can hide from the strong summer sun.
I am aware of history, but I am more interested in folklore tradition and art that goes from “mouth to mouth”, from one generation to the other. I was very lucky to grow up with two grandmothers that left behind beautiful embroidery works. I like to copy history and tradition and improvise on it. What the previous generations left is a great source of inspiration and of further development of new ideas and new motifs.
My work is balancing between architecture and art. My studies and my carrier as an architect have made me understand and embrace the idea of craftsmanship. Through this idea I began to experiment with my desire to create with my hands. The materiality and tactility of the tiles intrigued me from the first time to work with them and transform them. I started painting on the glazed surface in the same way I was painting on the paper and then I realised how much I enjoyed the process of holding a ceramic tile and looking at how the paint interacts with the glaze. Through my painting I aim to create something extraordinary from the ordinary. I work with the tiles the same way other artists paint on canvas. My ambition is to transform a painting into an object and an object into a painting.”
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