Invisible threads – “KATHIMERINI”

A world geometrified to the boundaries of infinity, harmonic through its manifold aspects, lambent through its contradictions, this is the world of Stella Meletopoulou, as presented in “Invisible Threads”. This is her latest exhibition at Gallery Skoufa (curated by Iris Kritikou), which orchestrates a reformulation of the world in codes, symbols fragments, threads, shapes and a successively cryptic and extrovert attitude.

Stella Meletopoulou surprises by proposing views of successive interpretations of the world. Underlying her compositions, teetering on the boundaries of collage and early 20th century modernism, lies an obvious command of her materials and self-confidence. These qualities pour into works, certain of which are quite large, of high aesthetic value, through their non-figurative order. There is no intention to form depictive images, just an intent beyond what is obvious.

Even the almost expressionist portraits, with their hints of the grotesque, extend into a world that includes certainties and upsets. Stella Meletopoulou’s mixed technique, and
particularly the manner in which she organizes her irrational universe in a geometric and rational manner, contains the required contradiction that provides charm. The threads that define the shapes and organize conceptual maps in her works, designating the direction of the gaze, maintain, as Iris Kritikou writes, “an imperceptible memory of the Matisse’s sequence of lambent curved figures and the succession of dark valleys in the oeuvre of Klee”. Also highly aesthetic are her acrylics on canvas with a gray background, where yellows and reds are almost independent. Stella Meletopoulou commands thought, method and aesthetics.

Invisible Threads
Stella Meletopoulou Exhibition, Skoufa Gallery, Athens