Previously featured Greek contemporary artist Marina Gialama returns with a series of new works, incorporating recent additions to her kit—ink and watercolor—“media that inspire me through their balance between control and unpredictability,” she says.
Through various mediums, Gialama dissects the human form in its most vulnerable and honest state—nakedness. Nudity in her work is a language to convey “conceptual and emotional messages each figure embodies.”
She creates immersive work; her sculptures preserve the concept of the offering—this time in clay, plaster, and occasionally marble. The artist shifted from the realistic, almost anatomical studies of the body to infuse her works with emotional charge, “inviting the viewer to engage […] through their own personal perspective.”
The human body as a subject exists in limbo between ubiquitous and limited, common and personal, organic and modified. Gialama treats it as “a carrier of identity,” essential and secondary to her work. Through the clever use of soft edges and malleable mediums, she is “examining its boundaries in time and space.”
In her paintings, black and white is the default state, with color used only to enhance lasting impressions. As she explains, “It is used in a pure and intense manner, aiming to create a strong visual impact and draw the viewer’s attention.”
In the recent collection, the female body becomes a fata morgana—a Rorschach-style reverie aimed at stimulating viewer perception. It comforts and disarms us simultaneously. It is a ludic approach to nudity, which serves merely as a medium of expression rather than the main point of focus.
“Ultimately,” Gialama mentions, “my work seeks to encourage observation, reflection, and dialogue between the artwork and the viewer.”
Read our “Camouflage” issue in full
RAWGUE.’s 4th issue delved into the grey, moody, and cold atmosphere of winter. Yet it did not sink into the depths of madness or depression. Instead, it embraced this season of hibernation, allowing 31 artists from all over the world to present their timid work beneath a veil of quiet beauty.
We’re a team of writers using our craft to spotlight art in its most honest form. RAWGUE. started as a bi-monthly editorial experiment where each issue’s theme is dictated by the submitted work, thus removing editorial bias from the equation and preserving a more raw approach. We focus on all forms of poetry: written, photographed, painted, drawn, and filmed.
