Marianna Strapatsaki – Prize for the Art of The New Media
How easy is it for a girl to pursue her dream when her parents don’t even want to hear about it?
She was born in Athens and after the dream of studying at the School of Fine Arts was under the prohibition of her parents, she followed the side path, studying at the Athens Technological Institute, with teachers Tsarouchis, Mytaras, Tassos, etc.
Thanks to her talent and stubbornness she managed to win a scholarship from the Academy of Athens and thus continued her studies at the Paris School of Fine Arts from where she received the Diploma of Painting and Design, while at the same time receiving the Diploma in Art History of the Louvre School.
He then obtained his first diploma in Plastic Arts from the University of Sorbonne.
Her artistic career begins with the honorary distinction “Mention d’Honneur” at a group exhibition in Nice, France.
In 1975 it held its first solo exhibition in Paris. Other solo and group exhibitions in France and Greece follow.
The use of strange materials, such as stainless steel sheet metal which gave it the properties of the sea, reflection and distortion and created images that the artist wanted to capture and not lose, led her to the inclusion of a new medium, the video, the vivid image in her works.
She was the first visual artist in the country to integrate the art of video into an artistic work. In 1984 she presented her first works of Video Art at the Goethe Institute in Athens.
Since 1989, the long journey of video installations begins with the work “The Ghosts of the Mediterranean or The Reflections of the Past”, which was a production of the 10th International Film Festival of Montpellier, France, where he collaborated with the renowned French artist Robert Cahen.
The installation has been presented in many European countries, in the largest museums, as well as in the Istanbul Biennale.
Among other things, the artist represents the French state in Rhodes in celebration of the 2400th anniversary of the founding of the city of Rhodes, with a video installation and an embossed work in the accommodation of the Crusaders, and then presents the multi-spectacle “BYZANTIO” in the Old Fortress of Corfu on the occasion of the Presidency of Greece at the European Summit.
Later she completes her trilogy “Birth – Life – Death” a work in progress over twenty years.
The third project entitled “Undeclared Places – Infinite White” represents Greece in 2013 in the Cultural Capital of Marseille, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Video Art at the international festival “instants video”.
In 2012, for the first time, a work of contemporary art was exhibited inside the National Archaeological Museum. It is the work of “The Ghosts of the Mediterranean or The Reflections of the Past”.
Today it has 40 solo exhibitions and participation in 63 group exhibitions.
But in addition to her visual work there is another side of that of the teacher. In 2004 he was inspired and started with the composer and professor Haris Xanthoudakis the department “Sound and Image Arts” at the Ionian University.
In this Department she taught as Associate Professor and President. It is the only University Department in Greece for the artists of the New Media, from which the first Ph.D. of Art will come out in our country, under its supervision.
He also organizes the Department’s Master’s Degree, as well as two research workshops, an Interactive Arts and an Acoustic Signal.
Her work is presented in all Art Encyclopedias, in 150 articles, in newspapers and magazines, in Visual broadcasts on Television and Radio, as well as in Festivals, in Greece and abroad.
Her works are found in Greece in important places, such as: the Ministry of Culture, the National Gallery, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art of Eliza and Vasilis Goulandris, as well as in the K collection. Six in Austria, in the T-collection. Karavia in New York and in collections in Greece, France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.
Marianna Strapatsaki is one of the most important artists of our country and her work characterizes the creative aesthetic quest and the unscrupulous avant-garde.
Eventually the girl with the forbidden dream, not only managed to break his bonds and realize it, but also broke the bonds of materials and form, opening new avenues in art, an art that captures dreams acting, alive and forever.
