“The Temple Of Psyche” by Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos
July 17th – 27th, 2022
Artist Reception: July 22nd, 6 – 9pm
Talisman Making Workshop: July 24th, 1 – 4pm
Gallery Hours: 7/23 1-4PM, 7/24 1-4PM, 7/27 5-8PM, and by appointment.
After an almost two year studio hiatus, Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos is pleased to announce the presentation of new work at Local Project Art Space in Long Island City from July 17 – July 27. An artist reception will be held on Friday, July 22nd from 6 – 9pm and an all ages talisman-making workshop will take place on Sunday, July 24th from 1 – 4pm. Gallery Hours will be daily from 12 – 3pm.
Working with discarded and ephemeral materials such as calendars, found objects, and a storehouse of pandemic era delivery boxes, The Temple of Psyche explores the endurance and fragility of the human soul as it flails like an inflatable tube man in today’s unpredictable, gloriously fucked-up world.
Borrowing from Greek Orthodox methods of devotion and remembrance, the exhibit will feature both small objects and larger scale sculptures inspired by “tamata”, symbolic votive offerings often depicting human conditions in need of supernatural intervention, and “kandylakia”, roadside shrines erected in memory to lives lost in accidents commonly sighted throughout Greece. The Greek cultural tradition of showing reverence through adornment will play throughout the exhibit.
This is an expansion of Eleni’s larger body of work entitled Graffiti For Mental Wellness, where through a process she calls “ecstatic tagging”, materials are marked and collaged together intuitively creating unfiltered expressions of the psyche: “I consider the psyche to be the human soul, seeing my own as a special blend of phantom-teenage angst and psycho- feminine hysterics.”
The Temple of Psyche is made possible by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Thank you QCA!
Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos has an interdisciplinary practice that spans the literary, visual, and performing arts. She draws inspiration through collaboration and dialogue, often creating relational work shaped by community, family, and lived experience. She studied poetry and film at Sarah Lawrence College, received her MFA from Brooklyn College, and is a professionally trained physical theater artist with 900 course hours clocked through the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. She is also a licensed real estate agent in Michigan. Born in Queens, NY to Greeks, she spends her time between New York City and Detroit working on collaborative and solo projects that range in shape and size.