Zoe Spiliotis
This series came out of part of my studio practice where I work quickly on small-scale paintings created on color paint swatches. The unique shapes of these mass-produced color swatches caught my eye and their wide array of colors offered me new ways to explore color relationships by starting with a pre-established and randomly chosen color.
My work is based on mathematical principles as a source for form, both artistically and conceptually. The tense, continually active figure-ground compositions reflect modernist aesthetics where every portion of a painting is of equal importance and treated with equal intensity. In the works, the repetition of patterns becomes its own space, with each shape supporting every other shape until they have no existence without each other.
The tessellation in my paintings creates a continuous space full of pulsating patterns, where color combinations are created and change with the spectator’s movement. Because these events unfold in time and space, the viewer is free to discover their ability to create and destroy color and their understanding of reality with their own perception from monocular cues.
The use of patterns allows me to present images with constantly changing focus and appearance. The ordering of forms, colors, and surfaces depends on their effectiveness in creating a transcendental artistic event with visual illusions of optics and rhythmic combinations of color and pattern. My work reflects a recurrent theme in philosophy, theology, art, and mathematics, which is the ongoing struggle to grasp the ideal and the transcendental and to encompass the infinite.
I believe all art is an immediate expression of the creator’s spiritual state, and each piece of art is imbued with a part of that artist’s soul. Recently, I have seen a renewed interest and willingness to embrace spirituality in the art world. The pandemic, wars, political division, and economic insecurity have undoubtedly enhanced a contemporary desire for transcendence and refuge. Thus more artists are turning to spiritual philosophies and theological iconography to examine their own beliefs and make sense of the current moment.
Geometric and simplified organic shapes, symbols, and symmetry are the framework I use to explore the complexities and duality of life. For me, these tiny pocket colors, are little reminders to hold onto those unexpected moments where wonder meets the ordinary.
About the artist
Zoe Spiliotis is a New Mexican based artist whose work is based on mathematical principles exploring the principles of repetition, symmetry, movement and visual perception through the use of patterns. Her work explores perception and the quest for transcendence; creating a space where wonder meets the ordinary and where heavens meet earth.
Spiliotis earned an AS in Graphic Design from Valencia Community College, a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia and an MFA from New Mexico State University. She exhibits nationally and internationally, and is represented in many collections across the country. She has also created number of public artworks in New Mexico, Texas, Pennsylvania and internationally in Venezuela. She was recently awarded a fellowship through the Humanities Collaborative UTEP-EPCC, funded by the Mellon Foundation for her project to develop a color identity for the City of El Paso. As an artist and educator she is a dedicated advocate for the arts, creating and promoting opportunities for her students, artists and the public. She serves on many local and national committees and is a member of the Border Artists, a non-profit collective which promotes arts in the binational region.