Ismini Bonatsou
An important element of my work is the way a subject-usually a young girl- does or does not communicate with her surroundings. The figures I paint usually levitate in a space that is minimalist, suggestive, without perspective. The absence of conventional space through the use of white color or unpainted paper, coexists in a delicate balance with the figure. In recent years, I have been using paper systematically: a humble material with a long history, which leads me to various experimentations. White unpainted paper as tabula rasa, moves away from the concept of “non finito”: it ends up acquiring an active role, intensifying contrasts such as blank-full, color-not color, and at the same time, through the technique of material removal (paper cutting), it highlights the contrast between matter and non-matter.
Ismini Bonatsou was born in Cephalonia. She graduated from the Athens School of Fine Arts (1986-1991). She did post-graduate studies in painting, with a scholarship from the Spanish government, at the Facultad de Bellas Artes of the University of Barcelona (1993-1994), and holds a Master’s degree from the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens (2010-2012). From 1995 to 2007 she was cooperating on a permanent basis with “SFERRA” Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam as an illustrator and art editor for the Foundation’s printed materials. She has worked in stage design projects, illustrated books for children and made CD covers in Greece and abroad. She was a founding member of the street art group ’Cookless’. (2011-2016)
He has had solo exhibitions in Greece, Belgium and Spain. He has participated in more than 50 group exhibitions in Greece, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, England, Cyprus, Turkey, Ecuador, China, Russia.
