Athènes n’est pas en Grèce

Mylène Jampanoï

Le Corbusier once said : « I would rather draw than talk. Drawing is
quicker and leaves less space to lie ». Mylène Jampanoï’s drawings, a
french artists that works in Athens, are just like that : personal, sensitive
but objectives. Her portraits, with a pure and precise line invoke
Cocteau’s. Just like the jack-of-all-trades poet of the twentieth century
was greatly inspired by antic stories, the faces drawn by Mylène Jamanoï
evoke those of Olympus godesses and gods. « I always prefered mythology
over History, because history is a truth that gets twisted from mouth to
mouth and becomes lie, whereas the myth, from mouth to mouth gains
strenghts and becomes true » explained Cocteau in The Greek prestige in
1960. For the artist, the drawn figures transcribe a greek mythology both
fantasized and personal, and her faces, with accents of ancient divinities,
remind us of Alekos Fassianos’s, a greek contemporary artist for whom
mythological myths have had a major influence. The link between her art
and poetry is obvious, and some of her drawings even come with poems.
Mylène Jampanoï studied at FEMIS (the National School of Image and
Sound Professions) in screenplay between 2016 and 2018 where she
discovered the power of writing. She considers drawing as a form of
writing and as the best extension of her work and of her life.

Marina Mankarios

« Hilarious, laughing out loud, the moulder deforms, shifts, mixes : when
Achille has his stomach in his heels Morpheus lowers his arms and the
beautiful Hélène begins to do a handstand … now free to leave his mold and
manhandle his models, our moulder finally becomes a sculptor. »
This is the story that Marina Mankarios offers to us in order to understand
her work. The sculptress uses the mold as a major tool of creation, that she
hijacks until we completely forget its very use. Molding allow not only
duplication and reproduction of works but also, paradoxically, a liberated
creation that plays with the very principle of imitation. But what is the use
of the molding if it is not to copy an artwork ? The principle of the mold is
indeed generally associated to serial reproduction of sculptures. However,
the artist offers us a different interpretation and use of the technique of
molding. « the moulder deforms, shifts, mixes » she says. The molding
considered successful is the one that hides its very essence of copying.
Conversely, Marina Mankarios plays around the technique of reproduction
by emphasizing the process. In this manner, she plays with deformation,
shifting of works. The model and the copy differ, but no matter, this is the
aim of the sculptress that incorporates error into her work in order to
deconstruct premade concepts of traditional aesthetic and create moving
and animated figures.